Unseelie
by L. Mouse
Summary: Sequel to Slayer of Nightmares. Kagome has agreed to help the Slayers with a nasty big bad that's well suited for elimination miko style. Things go south from there.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter one

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Author's Notes: Inuyasha/Buffy/BatB crossover. Sequel to _Promises, Alone in an Alley, a Slayer is Born _and _Slayer of Nightmares. _Go read _Slayer of Nightmares _before reading this. :-) _Alone in an Alley _and _Promises _are optional.

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"Well _you _didn't duck!" Kagome said, inspecting the bruise on Inuyasha's forehead. It was already healing -- she envied his ability to heal in hours or days what would take her weeks -- but it probably still hurt. She'd have been more sympathetic if this wasn't entirely his fault.

"Oh no, woman," he shook his finger at her, grinning. "You're the one who threw the damned boulder at me. Don't blame this one on me."

"I didn't throw the rock _at _you. I threw it at the vampire behind you. You were supposed to get out of the way when I said, _duck_!" She stalked into the bathroom to retrieve a bottle of pain killers; she'd hit him hard enough in the head to actually knock him out for a moment, scaring her half to death. Inuyasha was hard to hurt, but she'd thrown a basketball sized boulder with every ounce of her slayer strength and it had conked her hanyou instead of the vampire she was aiming at - the vampire that was inches behind him.

All because he was too stupid to _duck _when she yelled a warning. Really. All his fault.

"Why didn't you just 'sit' me," he grumbled, "I didn't _know _there was a vampire behind me. I was too worried about the six of them in _front _of me. Idiot."

"And the one behind you was about to bite you." Kagome shook her head, and tried to hand him the pill bottle and a glass of water. They honestly weren't sure what would happen if a vampire managed to bite Inuyasha, but everyone who knew anything about the half-youkai blood that ran through his veins shuddered at the thought.

Of course, there was an open question about the ability of your average vampire to actually bite through his skin ... Inuyasha was a hell of a lot tougher than his mostly-human appearance implied.

"Keh. I'm fine." He waved the bottle away. Eyes twinkling, he added, "It's just a scratch."

"Yeah, yeah, and you've got a hard head. It's bone all the way through." She tapped out two pills for herself -- she'd be sore and bruised when she woke up later, otherwise -- and gulped them down.

"I'll show you a bone," Inuyasha said, slowly, eyes still flashing with mischief.

"Hmmm. Maybe I think you're too hurt for show and tell," she turned her back on him. "You've only been whining about your head for the last two hours."

"Keh!" She heard the bed creak when he launched himself across the room at her. Strong arms swept her aloft. He pulled her tight against his chest, spun around, leaped into the middle of the bed standing up, then dropped down so the bed bounced with her still in his arms. He _liked _doing that -- little displays of macho strength that were so very Inuyasha.

Once, he'd told her he worried she might prefer his human form to his hanyou one. Her reaction had been blushing laughter to _that _suggestion. Yes, he was a hottie as a human guy, too -- if a bit incongruously _pretty --_ but the same strength and stamina that literally let him leap tall buildings in a single bound had some interesting implications in the bedroom for her, particularly since _she _wasn't entirely an ordinary girl these days either.

He was kissing her before the motion had stopped. When they came up for air -- which was mostly so that they could start tugging off their clothes -- he grumbled, "Not whining! I don't whine!"

"Sure, dog-boy ..." she laughed at him, then rolled free of his arms so she could kick her boots off and remove her jeans.

He pounced on her again with a low growl as soon as she was down to her underwear -- he was completely naked, long and lean and masculine, perfect. Gorgeous. And -- as the engagement ring on her finger, and a date set after her graduation next year -- proclaimed -- _hers_.

Laughing at his eagerness, she let him move to claim her. He yanked her underwear off with haste born of need ...

The doorbell rang.

Both of them froze. His house was remote, guarded by a gate, and warded against demons, youkai, and other supernatural visitors except those with express permission to enter his substantial landholding. 'Express permission' was Spike, Shippou, Lorne and Kirara -- _period_. They got the occasional lost human hiker up here that couldn't read 'no trespassing' signs, but few other visitors. So this was either some poor mortal, or one of the handful of friends who _were _allowed to visit.

"Maybe they'll go away if we ignore them," he was still hot and hard against her leg.

The doorbell rang again, insistently.

"Trouble, you think?" She let her miko senses reach out to see if their unwelcome visitor was human or _other_.

The youki she sensed wasn't entirely mortal -- it felt human, but tinged with demon. A hanyou maybe? She said so, and Inuyasha muttered a very frustrated curse under his breath. He didn't want to stop, and he said, "They might still go away."

"It could be a hanyou or it could be Spike," she said, suddenly. Mortal human soul plus demon might equal a certain vampire they both considered a friend. "It's almost dawn. He could be looking for shelter."

They'd given Spike the passcode to the gate months before -- he came up occasionally for a visit, though not usually in the predawn hours. "Fuck," Inuyasha said, not happy at all with the interruption, "Let's just leave him out there. We can sweep him up later."

"It might be important." Reluctantly -- very reluctantly -- she sat up and reached for her jeans. She yanked them on, and her t-shirt, and with a scowl on her face, headed for the door. Behind her, Inuyasha was muttering very rude comments about vampires as his, err, interest, slowly subsided. She muttered darkly under her breath, "It had _better _be important."

The sun was barely rising when she opened the door. To her surprise, the person at the door wasn't Spike, but, rather, a diminutive blond woman with one black eye and her arm in a sling. She looked exhausted on top of looking thoroughly beaten up, and she came right to the point, "Kagome, there's trouble."

"Buffy," Kagome said, a one-word greeting that would have been unfriendly even if she _wasn't _rather annoyed by the disturbance. Human soul plus demon influence also equaled Slayer.

"Can I come in?"

Kagome held the door open, and made a gesture indicating that the Slayer could pass into the house. "Is Inuyasha around?"

"He didn't do anything! He's been with me all night. We took out a nest of vampires earlier ..." Kagome started to protest. Inuyasha appeared on the stairs as she spoke, clad only in a pair of shorts. She shut her mouth, seeing anger in the lines of his thin body and well aware that if she expressed her own opinions about Buffy, Inuyasha would feed off it. He was far less happy about Buffy's intrusion than she was, and had far more personal reasons to heartily dislike -- even hate -- this woman.

Bare chested and bare-legged, hair escaping from his pony-tail, he silently descended the stairs to the fifth one from the bottom, where he dropped into a seated crouch, knees tucked up, hands clutching the edge of the step between his feet. And he fixed Buffy with a steady amber glare. He was stock still, and at the moment, looked far more demon than human.

"Uh," Buffy stared at him for a moment -- her Slayer senses had to be thoroughly wigged by the aura of barely-contained violence he was giving off -- then glanced back at Kagome. She frowned. "You know your shirt's ..." she made an abortive gesture in the air, indicating _buttons_.

Kagome glanced down. She'd butted her shirt off by one hole, and it was crooked and rumpled. Her hair had to be wild as well.

Buffy glanced at Inuyasha again, and Kagome figured the Slayer was drawing some obvious conclusions, given that the upstairs bedroom light had been on. Had she thought Inuyasha would be alone here?

And given Inuyasha was looking rather feral at the moment, they had to be some fairly ... uncomplimentary ... thoughts. She impatiently wiggled her fingers in the air, displaying an engagement ring. If Buffy wanted to think she was marrying a monster, there wasn't much she could do about it. Particularly since Inuyasha had done plenty of terrible things to convince her of that fact -- Buffy had deep scars across her back from his claws and had lost a number of friends and colleagues to Inuyasha's claws. Not that Inuyasha had been exactly unprovoked.

With some asperity, Kagome said, "Hey. He's my fiancé. Next time, call first before you knock on our door at six AM."

Buffy blinked. "If you think I care what you two do the privacy of your bedroom, you _really _don't know who I am."

Inuyasha snorted skeptically. Kagome just sighed. "What do you want?"

Buffy ignored the question and insisted, "Spike said you two were an item. So I knew. And I don't care."

Inuyasha snorted again. "What nasty broke your arm, wench?"

She jumped at his voice. Buffy had issues with Inuyasha -- as well as nearly killing her, he'd taken the lives of a number of Slayers who'd been hunting him. Inuyasha had issues right back; Buffy'd killed his wife and had nearly been responsible for Kagome losing her life as well. And the girls he'd killed haunted him; Kagome knew that. Still, that was Inuyasha _trying _to be polite. Buffy gave him another wary look and then said, "The big bad of the day."

"Big bad."

"Or bads, to be specific."

"Keh." Inuyasha pointed at the couch. "Sit, woman, before you collapse. I can smell your exhaustion. Kagome, you find out what she wants. I'm making something to drink."

Buffy gave him a startled look, perhaps surprised by the rough courtesy, and said, "Uh ... not alcoholic, I don't drink."

"Figures." Inuyasha eyed her narrowly.

"Was that even an _offer _to get me something to drink?" Buffy asked, matching his frowning look with a skeptical one of her own. She did, however, sit down.

"It was," Kagome said smoothly, "Do you want tea or coffee or soda or water ...?"

There was a long hesitation, perhaps while Buffy decided if it was safe to consume anything offered to her here. Apparently, she decided they weren't likely to poison or drug her, because she finally said, "Coffee." Buffy sighed, and settled down, somewhat stiffly, onto the couch. "Strong. Thank you. I've been going for two days without sleep."

Without a further word, Inuyasha vanished into the kitchen. Buffy gazed after him, expression softening a bit. "He really hates me, doesn't he?"

"He does," Kagome confirmed. "And he can also hear you even in the kitchen." She felt it was only fair to remind the Slayer that anything she said would be overheard -- and, given Inuyasha's intense dislike (hatred might not actually be too strong of a word) of Buffy, and given that this _was _Inuyasha, anything she said would probably be taken the wrong way.

"Uh. Congratulations on the ... ring."

"He's not the monster you think he is," Kagome said. "But I won't ask him ever to like you. Or forgive you."

"Guess that's fair," the blond Slayer leaned back against the couch. She closed her eyes, and for a moment, Kagome thought she looked tiny and very young. "Word has it that you two have been making a major dent in the bad guy population around here."

Kagome shrugged. "It's something to do on Friday nights, what can I say. Buffy, why are you _here_?"

"We need a heavy hitter to take out a bad guy, Kagome. Your name came up."

"That bad, huh?" Kagome had no illusions about Slayer Central's collective opinion of her. She was the Slayer who was marrying the (half)demon who'd killed twelve slayers and who was pretty much indestructible and unstoppable by anything short of _serious _magic. Willow could take Inuyasha out if necessary -- and very nearly had -- but there weren't many others who would even want to try. His track record with dealing with physical attacks was a rather grim legend among the Slayers.

They didn't like losing their own -- or, Kagome suspected, simply _losing_.

Many saw her love of Inuyasha as a public slap in the face to her "own kind" -- a betrayal. Not that she worried much. While she wasn't entirely comfortable with his actions, he'd been very thoroughly provoked, very much insane with grief, and -- given her knowledge of what Inuyasha could actually _do _-- rather restrained in his reactions. He'd only killed those who directly confronted him, when he could easily have slain every Slayer in the city, and anyone affiliated with them.

She still wasn't sure if the Slayers fully comprehended what Inuyasha was capable of. If they did, they'd have either been a whole lot nicer to him, or hit him with a significantly larger amount of resources. Instead, they'd hunted him with small packs of Slayers ... and whenever they caught up with him, girls had died. Perhaps it was because he didn't _look _like much -- average height, humanoid body, his primary weapons claws and teeth and an enchanted sword -- that they'd never taken him as seriously as warranted.

But they knew enough now to have a healthy mistrust of Inuyasha, coupled with a good solid hatred for him from many of their members. In the end, he'd killed twelve girls who'd attacked him at various times, and pushed him very nearly to the edge of insanity. Inuyasha wasn't naturally a killer, particularly of _pretty little girls_, as he put it. But with his back against the wall, and grieving his first wife's death at their hands ... he'd killed. And he still woke in screaming nightmares now, and sometimes, his eyes were terribly haunted.

She's assumed at first that he'd killed in demon form. But those nightmares -- and the memories that he clearly had -- told her it was worse: he'd been fighting as himself. He'd killed humans without losing himself in the vicious oblivion that was his demon blood.

If they were asking _her, _Inuyasha's girlfriend, for help, it had to be pretty bad.

"Bad." Buffy said, her words echoing Kagome's thoughts. "Very bad. Apocalyptically end-the-world nasty bad, with a big emphasis on nasty."

"I see. And you want me to help." It wasn't an unexpected request. She was, after all, one of them.

"Kagome ain't goin' anywhere with you, wench," Inuyasha reappeared. He handed Buffy a mug of instant coffee -- he hadn't even bothered to brew it, since she'd never heard the coffeepot percolating. Since Inuyasha _did _know how to operate the coffee pot, Kagome frowned at him. He returned her frown with a glare that just begged her to say something about his inhospitality.

"I believe Kagome is capable of speaking for herself." Buffy's response was icy.

"Heh. That's the truth." Inuyasha snorted, and hopped up onto the back of the loverseat across from the couch, where he crouched, more feline than dog-like in his pose. Shoulders hunched, knuckles resting on the couch back between his feet, he fixed Buffy with an amber-eyed glare that was almost certainly a deliberate attempt to make her uncomfortable.

Buffy tilted her head, observed him for a moment, then asked, "Is he housebroken?"

Kagome spluttered a laugh. "Most of the time," she said, before Inuyasha could respond with more than a rude noise and an amber-eyed glare of affronted dignity. "He even fetches the paper from the driveway in the morning. Sits on command, too."

The latter statement was a veiled warning -- and Inuyasha picked up on it, because he gave her a dark, unhappy look and hopped off the back of the couch. Assuming a far more human pose, he stood, arms folded, eyes narrowed, and said, "What sort of apocalypse?"

Buffy said quietly, "One Kagome is invited to." _Not you_, her words said, unspoken.

"Keh!" Inuyasha snorted, impatient and angry, "What makes you think I'd help! And Kagome sure as hell ain't!"

"Inuyasha, don't make me do it. I will. You're worrying Buffy." Kagome folded her arms. She hadn't _Osuwari'd _him since the last time they'd talked to this woman, six months ago, but he was pushing her buttons in addition to trying to unsettle Buffy.

"Maybe she should be scared. Stupid bitch thinks she can just waltz in here and ask us to help her."

"Inuyasha ..." The rudeness she could tolerate, but he was being beyond just snarky and sarcastic at Buffy -- he was being _stupid_. Buffy wasn't evil, and she did have a rather large amount of power, and pissing off the leader of the Slayers was just not smart for a half-demon to do. Buffy already had reason to thoroughly mistrust Inuyasha; this was like stoking a fire. Buffy wasn't Kouga, or Sesshomaru -- Inuyasha tended to deal with people he didn't like by provoking them into fights. He couldn't _do _that with this woman without there being serious repercussions.

"I'm sorry," Buffy said, voice calm and clear and not at all frightened -- though Kagome had seen her flinch in response to Inuyasha's angry words. Despite Kagome's worries, Buffy sounded calm -- though there was a certain amount of steel in her words. "We both have reasons to mistrust one another, Inuyasha. Do you think it's really all that easy for me to come here?"

Inuyasha gave her a wary glance between silvery bangs, then stared at his ground. He muttered, "No."

Buffy sighed. "Y'know, did it ever occur to you that if the circumstances were different, the three of us might have been friends? We're on the same side. We're fighting the same good fight. And we've much in common, the three of us."

"Keh." Inuyasha snorted, but Kagome was impressed. While Inuyasha was a long way from declaring Buffy his next best friend, some of the rigid tension was slipping out of the set of his shoulders. He gave her another brief glance, suspicious and hostile. "So, what broke your arm?"

This woman was a leader -- and apparently reasonably good at it. The _best _way to handle Inuyasha when he was in a nasty mood was to give him respect and allow for his dignity. He dealt with being treated as both less than human and less than a full youkai on a regular basis -- it didn't take much of being _nice _to Inuyasha before he started returning the favor. Though in Buffy's case, the time before she earned that first shy smile from Inuyasha that said he was thinking of considering her a friend rather than a not-quite-mortal enemy was probably going to be a bit longer than usual.

"A prince of the Unseelie," Buffy said, finally answering his question. She wiggled her fingers in the cast. "Got me with a sword, actually." She indicated her upper arm with a gesture. "Almost lost it."

"Feh. Fair folk. Not like the demons you usually fight. More like youkai -- my father's people." Inuyasha fixed her with a skeptical look. Although Inuyasha was conventionally referred to as half-demon by English speakers, the youkai didn't consider themselves the same sort of demons as many of the monsters that Buffy (and Kagome) fought on an almost daily basis. Creatures of magic, yes. Evil nasty hell creatures? _Definitely _not. "Didn't know any of them were alive in this world, in this day. They're dangerous."

Buffy looked truly and completely exhausted. "I led a force of about two hundred Slayers and a few dozen others against them ... two weeks ago. Some of us survived. Most of the Unseelie didn't. We tracked their damned prince -- or at least, his credit cards -- here."

"Gonna try for another round, I take it?" Inuyasha snorted his opinion of that. "Kagome ain't playing. She's not one of you."

"She is. She can't -- _you _can't -- turn away from this." Buffy turned her attention to Kagome. "Do you usually let him decide things for you?"

"No." Kagome glanced at Inuyasha. He folded his arms and glared.

"Feh." It was fear making him speak so forcefully, as it often had in the past. He was completely terrified he'd lose her in a fight. She knew that -- he had, once, and only his brother's unexpected grace had brought her back. She also knew he was very likely to go into a towering rage if she started seriously discussing things with Buffy -- and Buffy's opinion of Inuyasha was low enough as it was.

"Inuyasha, I need to talk to Buffy," she said, carefully.

"So talk."

"_Alone_." She stressed. He was going to be pissed at her later, but she judged Inuyasha pissed off at her was probably better than having the Slayer convinced he was an unmanageable idiot. He was _likely _to push her to the point that she had to use the rosary to 'sit' him. She couldn't talk frankly with Buffy while Inuyasha was there, and in _this _mood.

Unfortunately, if Buffy saw her 'sit' Inuyasha, she was could come to the wrong conclusion -- and that was that Inuyasha couldn't restrain himself if he chose to. Which meant that the Slayers could decide he was too much of a liability to have around at some point.

"Feh. Why should I trust her alone with you?" The fear was real that prompted Inuyasha's words; she could see it lurking in his amber eyes. The slayers had killed his wife of four hundred and fifty years a few years before she'd been reunited with him in the present day. She knew he blamed himself and Buffy for that in about equal measures, which meant he was doubly unlikely to want to leave.

"Inuyasha, go take a walk," Kagome said, in a gentler tone of voice. "I'll be fine. I promise."

He hesitated for a long, rebellious moment before issuing a disgusted snort at her foolhardiness. He grumbled, "You could kick her butt, anyway."

Inuyasha headed up the stairs -- probably to grab a shirt. After a moment, she heard the master bedroom balcony door open, then a crunch of his feet hitting the gravel driveway. She waited until she couldn't sense his youki anymore, then said mildly to Buffy, "He's gone."

Kirara appeared at the head of the stairs. The youkai cat gave Buffy a long, level stare before padding down the stairs.

Buffy relaxed a little -- Kagome wondered what she'd _smelled _like to Inuyasha, given that Kagome could _see _the tension in the woman's shoulders and back while Inuyasha had been around. The Slayer said, in a very serious tone of voice, "Kagome, are you _okay_? Because if you want away from him, we can help you -- he'd never find you."

Kagome laughed. "Buffy, don't worry about me. Not that way. Not ever, not from Inuyasha."

"He's ..." Buffy clearly seemed to be about to ask something along the lines of, 'What do you see in that monster?' but was probably trying to find a way to phrase it politely. Buffy wasn't the first person to think she might be better off without him based on a bad first impression. Buffy's first meeting with Inuyasha had been particularly disastrous, however, even allowing for Inuyasha's usual inability to charm.

Kirara hopped up on the couch next to Buffy, who gave the "cat" a startled look when she realized that she had three tails and eyes that were a bit large for any mortal cat. Kagome had seen a picture of a ringtail cat once, an American member of the raccoon family, and thought that Kirara looked a bit like that, only with different colors.

"He hates you." Kagome said, quietly. "Buffy, you're right about us -- that in another world, another time, another place, the three of us might have been friends. But I'm not sure Inuyasha will ever forgive you for what you did to his wife -- and to him -- and for the girls he had to kill to survive."

"He's the one who killed them!" Buffy protested, angered by that. Kirara butted up against Buffy, begging for a scratch -- Kagome watched that with a bit of surprise. Kirara was a good judge of character, far better than anyone else among her friends.

"Hai. And sometimes I think that eats at him worst of all." Kagome sighed. The thought of what Inuyasha had done did bother her, when she stopped to think about it. And she was terrified of Inuyasha being pushed to that point again ... "Buffy, all you've ever seen of Inuyasha is the anger in him. I wish you could know him as he really is, but I'm not sure he'll ever forgive you enough to let his guard down around you."

Buffy sighed. Shook her head. And apparently having decided that the neko-youkai in her lap was harmless, she scratched Kirara behind the ears. "If you ever do need help, you're one of us. We help our own."

"Yes. We fight the same fight. Tell me about these Unseelie ..."

"The short explanation is that they were stealing children to sacrifice to open a new Hellmouth under New York City." Buffy gave Kagome a small smile that almost looked _approving_. "Word is, between you guys and Angel and Spike, they've decided Los Angeles is a lost cause. Though why they'd think New York City was going to be easier ... let's just say we had some pretty big league help taking them out. That city has no shortage of heroes."

"Lovely. Children, you say?" Kagome frowned. She had no reason to doubt Buffy's word, and a lot to believe it. "Unseelie are a lot like youkai, from what I've read. I should be able to purify them the same way ..."

"That's what we were hoping," Buffy said. "Wil wants to work with you to catch Prince Federic -- that's the baddy we want to take out here. He's gone underground somewhere in this area, but we don't know where. She's hoping she might be able to help you intensify your talents. You could really help turn the tables towards our side."

Kagome sighed. If Buffy was asking for her help, things were truly bad -- and truly important. She didn't need to hear a lot more than, _sacrificing children_, to be willing to fight with them. She'd told Giles that she'd fight on their side months ago, though she'd never consider herself one of them. "Hai. I'll help. However, there's a couple of conditions."

"Like what?" Buffy said, very warily. Kirara hopped up on Buffy's shoulder and sprawled there, purring and making kneading motions with her paws.

"Inuyasha," Kagome said, quietly. "What about him?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I try to leave him behind and go fight something nasty without him he'll only follow me," Kagome glanced in the direction he'd gone. She swallowed hard, "I don't want Willow or somebody else getting the wrong idea and hurting him if he shows up unexpectedly. If I help, it's with Inuyasha openly at my side -- and I want your solemn promise that you'll see to it that your people will not hurt him. I ... will ask him to be low key, because I know having him around will be quite disruptive and likely many of your people have issues with him, but I want it known that he's working with me and he's under _your _protection."

Buffy frowned. Her hand on Kirara stilled, until Kirara mewed a complaint about the neglect, "He'd follow you."

"Can, would, has. To the ends of the earth and into Hell itself if necessary. I'd do the same for him without hesitation. We're two halves of a whole, Buffy." Kagome met Buffy's expression levelly. "... _And_ we fight together very well as a team. I honestly can't think of anyone I'd rather have watching my back in a fight. Inuyasha's more likely to get myself _and _himself out of trouble alive than anyone else I know."

"You love him that much." Buffy said, a simple statement of fact. She picked at the cast on her arm for a moment. "Can I ask you a question and get an honest answer?"

"Maybe," Kagome said, a hint of humor touching her eyes.

Buffy responded with a snort of appreciative laughter. "Speaking of honest answers! Anyway, do you seriously think Inuyasha can restrain himself and not hurt anyone in a seriously hostile environment? 'Cause they'll _hate _him. He might get a warmer reception from the Unseelie than he will from my own people."

"Buffy, Inuyasha's been dealing with hatred his entire life. It won't be anything new for him." Kagome sighed. "You'll have to worry about _me _a whole lot more than _him _if anyone gets out of line. Inuyasha will snap and snarl but his bark's far worse than his bite. He _never _hits first when it's humans involved." She paused. "He's pretty good at provoking people into hitting first, though."

"And if they attack him?" Buffy closed her eyes. "I can tell them not to. But I can't guarantee someone won't get stupid."

"If they attack him ... I think he'll be fine. He'll defend himself, of course, but I would be highly surprised if he'd let anyone push him over the edge -- he _really _doesn't want to go there again. He was in a pretty bad place, mentally, for a long while there but I think he's doing better. The exception would be if _I'm _threatened, or one of his other friends, like Shippou -- or Spike, these days -- then all bets are off."

Buffy gave Kagome a quick, covert glance at the mention of Spike, then she snorted. "Anyone among my people dumb enough to attack a Slayer with a half-demon bodyguard of Inuyasha's power deserves what they get." She paused, then added, "The threat won't come from any of my Scoobies -- my inner circle -- I can _assure _you that. But there's over sixteen hundred girls now, plus some other people we've picked up along the way, and ..." she trailed off before adding in a vicious tone of voice, "I _hate_ politics."

Kagome nodded understanding. She didn't envy Buffy her role as the head of that many Slayers -- since learning what she was, she'd met a few other like her. Besides being generally good guys, they all has a marked tendency towards strong opinions, stubbornness, and independence. Leading the Slayers had to be like herding cats. "So where do you want us to go?"

"Angel's hotel -- do you know where it is?"

Kagome shook her head. She'd not met Spike's employer yet. He was very busy, as was she; they'd just never crossed paths.

"Angel's been putting the girls up in his hotel -- we'll meet there about six tonight." Buffy said, "By the way, Angel's ..."

"A vampire, I know, Spike's mentioned him." Generally, Spike's mentions of Angel were mixed in with obscenities, but Kagome figured it wasn't necessary to allude to that. "With a soul. Don't worry, I won't stake him. Noon, then. I'll be there."

"You're being remarkably easy to convince," Buffy said, skeptically. She'd clearly expected more of an argument.

Kagome shrugged. "You wouldn't be coming to me, or accepting Inuyasha fighting at my side, if it wasn't serious. And I told Mr. Giles that I'd help if you needed me. I expect sooner or later I'll need the favor returned."

"True." Buffy said. "Particularly with you living here in LA -- I swear, this town has more outbreaks of weirdness ..."

Kagome snorted agreement to that. "I'll bring a couple of other people too -- will you have problems with a couple of full youkai coming with me?"

Buffy cast a worried glance in the direction of Inuyasha's exit, up the stairs. "Umm."

Kagome giggled. Clearly, Buffy was wondering if they were like her boyfriend ... "Trust me, Shippou's _much _better mannered than Inuyasha. He was raised by humans and he's one of my better friends. I trust him implicitly. He works for Lorne -- you know Lorne, right? And Spike knows him. As for Kirara -- you're petting her now."

Buffy glanced down at the cat, lifting her hand away from the creature in her lap. Kirara gave her an innocent look.

"What is she?" Buffy said, very warily. Obviously, she'd assumed "harmless pet" since Kagome hadn't said anything.

"Friend of ours. Neko-youkai." Kagome shrugged. Since they'd established Kirara didn't understand _any _English, she asked in Japanese, "Kirara, you'll come, right? To a fight? We're going to be taking on a bad youkai."

"Prrip." Maybe a yes, maybe not. Kagome wished that Kirara could talk -- though she wasn't entirely sure how intelligent the cat actually was. Smarter than a housecat, surely, and probably self-aware, but who knew how much the creature actually grasped? Even Inuyasha could only shrug and confess he had no idea when she'd asked him.

Kirara stood up on her hind legs, planted both front feet on Buffy's chest, and rubbed her chin against Buffy's jaw. _I like this one, _her expression seemed to say.

"Uh." Buffy hesitantly returned to scratching the cat's ears.

"Trust me, she's a lot tougher than she looks." Kagome said, with a laugh at Buffy's confused expression.

-----------------------


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

--------------------

Author's Note: A few people have asked if this is a crossover with Mercedes Lackey's SERRAted edge world -- it isn't, though people will undoubtedly pick up some strong thematic similarities. Misty's world uses the same source material (Celtic/European mythology and faery tales and a fair amount of pop culture) that I'm drawing on for this story. That's the only similarity.

(And for the record -- I _love _Misty's worlds and I have written Valdermar fanfic, which is, alas, not something I can post online.)

So, why Unseelie? Because I needed a big bad that could challenge a wickedly powerful hanyou, a daiyoukai lord, a full grown kitsune, and a whole army of Slayers. And, also, I've been wanting to do a faery tale in the Buffyverse for awhile.

-------------------

Inuyasha was seated where she expected him to be. The highest point of his expansive property was a flat rock with a three hundred and sixty degree view of mountains, canyon, and beyond, the city and it was there that she found him. It was just light enough that the city lights had faded away, and only the morning star and a quarter of a waning moon were visible in the sky. Dawn was coming, minutes away.

The dawn wind that always rolled downhill from the mountains tousled his waist-length silver hair. He heard her coming, because an ear flicked back, but that rippling banner of hair was the only other motion. He sat so still he could have been a wax statue.

"Have a good chat with your little girlfriend?" There was snark and sarcasm in his words; he spat them at her when she was a few feet away, and without turning around. Behind the venom was _hurt_ ... she'd deeply wounded his feelings by ordering him away.

She didn't say a word, just knelt down behind him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and buried her face in his silken hair, hoping for forgiveness. Against her chin she could feel the wear-worn beads of the rosary, warmed by his body heat. He was tense, resisting the embrace. Angry, probably, too -- Inuyasha saw the world in black and white, good and evil. Buffy _wasn't _their friend, and he saw no need to be nice to her.

"She's a shade of grey, dog-boy."

"What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" He sounded hostile, even paranoid.

"It means you can't be nasty to her." She sat back a bit and rubbed his deceptively thin shoulders, fingers digging into rock-hard muscles. "Even if you don't like her -- and I don't like her either -- we can't be nasty."

"I wasn't being nasty." He said that sullenly, and she could see him clench his jaw when he stopped talking. That was defiance talking. He was seven centuries old and he still reminded her of a punk kid sometimes. Five centuries of crap sent his way, she reminded herself -- there was a _reason _Inuyasha had left Japan, and a reason he had purchased an isolated and rather defensible home that, a century ago, had been a long way from anywhere.

It was a wonder to her, sometimes, that he bothered to trust people at all -- that he still had the capability to see the good in anyone.

"You were being an asshole and you're well aware of it. I _know _you, Inuyasha and I know you actually do comprehend the concept of manners when you want to. You were being a jerk, deliberately. What was that whole thing with crouching and staring at her? And the instant coffee? _Really_, that was just petty." She ran her hand down his wind-tangled hair, feeling the hard muscles of his back through it.

"We're out of beans!" he snapped, sounding wounded that she'd thought he'd stooped to that level. "Wench wanted coffee. But I had it for instant; I use it for cooking deserts sometimes."

"... oh. I hadn't realized," she sighed, feeling a little guilty -- but only a little. "Inuyasha, I was worried you were going to push her to the point that I'd have to," she said the word in English, "_sit _you. And I didn't want to do it in front of Buffy." She slid her hand under the rosary around his neck, feeling the play of worn beads across her fingers. His skin under the beads was a trace thickened, callused, from centuries of wearing the enchanted rosary.

She wished she could take it off him. But he'd asked her not to -- he wanted her to be his safety net.

He was silent, for a long moment, though a little of the tension bled from the muscles under her hands. "Keh. I was being a bastard, wasn't I?"

"Pretty much." She rested her chin on his shoulder. "Koi, you're going to need to be at least civil to her."

"Feh. No I don't. Next time she comes up here, I'll just excuse _myself_." He snorted. " Can't be rude to her if I avoid her."

"Okay. Then I'll leave you home today."

Silence, for a moment, from her hanyou. The tension returned to the powerful muscles under her hands. "Ka-go-me," he drew the syllables of her name out, "what did you agree to? I fucking knew I never should have left you alone with her ..."

"Got her to agree that if I was going to help her with her nasty fae problem, it was with you watching my back. I don't exactly trust them either, dog-boy. They're not evil, but everything I've seen of the Slayers tells me that they can be damned ruthless. I don't want to end up on the 'less' end of 'ruthless' in a fight, know what I mean?" She slid her hands down his arms and kneaded his taut biceps. "Besides, if I tried to run off to a fight with the Slayers without you, you'd just follow me."

"Feh." To his credit, he _didn't _say, 'Why are we helping them?' -- instead, he sighed, and said, "They can't deal with this nasty themselves, I take it? Some army they are."

"They tried. I don't think they have a miko among their forces. That's why they came to me." Kagome stroked his hair; he was calming down as he spoke to her. She could feel him relaxing. "Inuyasha, will you watch me back?"

"Of course! Do you even need to ask?"

"_And _be civil? I don't expect you to be _friendly_, just don't growl at anyone." She sat back again, leaving off playing with his hair or trying to relax the remaining tension in his slender frame.

"They killed Amelia!"

"Hai. They did." She bowed her head, suddenly. "If you want to stay behind..."

"No!" That was almost a violent response; he jerked his head up so quickly that his hair bounced, and his ears pinned flat to his head. "Fuck no. If you're going to fight some baddie who managed to kill a bunch of Slayers, for damn sure it's with me or _not at all_."

He spun around to face her; it was a quick, violent movement that sent gravel skittering off the rock and into the canyon below. His eyes were wide; she recognized fear behind the aggressiveness of his moments. "They'll get you dead too if you don't look out. Slayers _die,_ Kagome. Ask Spike some time about Buffy's history. Damnit, damnit, wench! I don't want to see you messed up in something that's going to get you dead!"

"I don't want to die either, dog-boy."

"You did, though." He meant in the fight with the turok-han six months ago, when Sesshomaru had brought her back using Tenseiga -- something that would only work _once_. "You did. And I was right beside you when they struck you down."

His eyes softened a bit, and he swallowed hard before adding, "Koi, this isn't like taking out a nest of vampires; you can dust vampires simply by touching 'em and thinking pure thoughts. Watching you plow through a pack of vampires is _fun. _But this is ... bad. Unseelie are like youkai. They're asking you to go up against something like Naraku, I suspect."

"I figured." If it was an ordinary baddie, Buffy never would have come to her -- not with their unfortunate history.

He reached out and cupped the side of her face, claws just barely touching her skin. His talons were inches from her eyes and her jugular. She simply leaned into the caress, smiling a little at him.

"What? You're smirking, woman."

"Am not. But it's funny, Inuyasha. _You're _the one who wished for me to make as much of a difference in the future as I did in the past." She caught his hand in hers and kissed his knuckles. "I know you want me to stay safe. But this is my calling, Inuyasha. I can't walk away from evil. This is what I was meant to do with my life."

"I suppose," he roughly pulled her into a hug. "You wouldn't be my Kagome if you didn't get into trouble at least once a week." After a moment, he added, "I'll be civil to those bastards. For you. But I'll _never _trust them."

"I don't expect you to," she whispered into his shoulder, just loud enough for even his keen ears to hear, "For both our sakes, please don't."

----------------------

"That's the hotel?" Inuyasha was driving -- while he preferred to run or leap at freeway speeds to get places, he _could _drive, and they'd elected to go by car because it was daytime and he didn't want to make a conspicuous entrance. The Slayers wouldn't like that.

And, of course, this meant _he _had to drive. He claimed it was chivalry. Kagome suspected it was testosterone.

At least he was a surprisingly good driver -- though on reflection, she decided maybe it _wasn't _a surprise he was skilled behind the wheel -- Inuyasha had learned to drive around the turn of the last century. That he was _attracted _to cars surprised her little. He liked Nascar, classic cars, and monster trucks, too -- the latter with a rather embarrassing amount of enthusiasm; only narrowly had she averted the fate of having an autographed monster truck poster framed and hung on their bedroom wall.

Which took her right back to the 'testosterone' theory of explaining ninety-five percent of Inuyasha's behavior.

_Well, I've _seen _how he's hung_, she thought, with a strictly mental smirk. _An excess of testosterone is certainly plausible. _

"Kagome?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, that's the hotel," she said.

Inuyasha promptly drove right past it. "Let's check out the neighborhood."

"Good idea," she agreed, peering out the window at the afternoon streets. It was the middle of rush hour; he expertly negotiated his way through choking traffic in an orbit around the block, then -- experience was guiding them both here -- he bumped over a couple of potholes in his Jeep and drove down a few trash-strewn alleys.

Kagome wasn't sure what they were looking for, other than simply canvassing an unfamiliar neighborhood for likely trouble spots and escape routes. However, several years of fighting for her and a lifetime for him had taught them both paranoia. Still, she was surprised when he turned up yet another alley and ... there was a guy with a sword there. A _tall _guy, with a blond pony tail and handsome features saved from being downright pretty only by a nose that had been broken and healed crookedly. He had broad shoulders, big muscles, and chain mail to go with the bad-ass looking three foot long broadsword in his hand.

"Now, that's something you don't see every day," Inuyasha said, stopping the Jeep. He leaned forward, blinked a couple of times, and regarded the man holding the sword through the dusty, bug-splattered windshield with a dubious frown. The man stared back, sword held comfortably in one hand and feet planted solidly on the crumbling asphalt of the alley.

"He's youkai," Kagome said, eyebrows vanishing up under her bangs. Youkai -- and _powerful_. She could sense it. _And as heavy as that sword he's holding in one hand has to be, he's physically strong as well._

The youkai man spun round, suddenly, staring in alarm towards the other end of the alley. Two men on horses -- horrible, red-eyed, bone-armor-covered horses that were as much clichés as the romance-novel-cover handsomeness of the youkai man -- had appeared. The men work black armor, including helms with faceplates that covered their features. Both had long, glittering swords that looked like they meant business.

Blondie-boy crouched, knees flexing a bit, sword coming up into an aggressively defensive position.

"Uh ..." Kagome said, "I may be wrong here, but I'm going to hazard a guess and say those are the Unseelie."

"Or their servants." Inuyasha put the Jeep in park, unbuckled his seatbelt, and calmly stepped out. He reached into the back of the Jeep to pick up Tessaiga.

Kagome, taking a hint, grabbed her bow up from behind her seat and strung it. The horsemen just stood there on fidgeting horses, showing no reaction. The blond man glanced over his shoulder at them, eyes widening when he saw Inuyasha and Kagome's weapons; he spun half a turn towards them and put his back to a wall, clearly thinking they were after him from _both _sides

Kagome lifted her sword up and fired off a warning shot in the direction of the Unseelie -- she charged the arrow with a significant amount of purifying power and when it hissed between the two horses, both uncanny beasts shied away from it.

Inuyasha barked a short, blackly amused laughed as one rider hit the ground and the other's horse bolted around a corner -- the riderless horse followed, and just before it disappeared out of sight it it kicked both heels up and issued a tremendous fart.

Kagome leveled another arrow at the fallen youkai -- it _was _a demon, and one more akin to the youkai she was familiar with, not the coarse, nasty creatures she regularly fought as a slayer. The creature scrambled back to its feet, and instead of running, it charged, sword glittering in one hand, shield strapped to the other arm. Silent. Deadly. Lightning fast.

The blond man spared Tessaiga -- now unsheathed and car-bumper large -- a startled look before turning to face the attack. Inuyasha wordlessly stepped up beside him. Kagome gave both of them a disgusted look and shot an arrow past them to hit the attacker when he was only a score of feet away. The arrow bounced off his armor -- and to her frustration, seemed to have no effect.

Dark Knight Dude ripped into Inuyasha and Blondie-Boy with a whirlwind of incredibly fast blows. Inuyasha took the brunt of the attack; he parried twice, three times. Dark Knight's sword screeched like fingernails on slate each time it clashed up against Tessaiga's enchanted length -- Kagome winced at that sound, guessing it was a _bad _thing.

Then with the swiftness of a snakebite, the bad guy got a thrust past Tessaiga and ripped through Inuyasha's red fire-rat haori and into the muscle of his arm. It was a deep, disabling cut; Inuyasha recoiled backwards, and dropped Tessaiga as his fingers stopped responding to the demands of his nerves. "Fuck!"

Blondie-boy's sword skittered off the back of Dark Knight's armored back, doing no damage despite what looked like a ferocious amount of strength behind the blow. Dark Knight turned around and sent Blondie-boy flying with a backhanded blow of his sword that had to have broken ribs under the man's mail, even if no skin was broken. Kagome _heard _the crack of breaking bone. Blondie-boy stumbled backwards and went down, arms wrapped around his chest.

_Fuck! _She mentally echoed Inuyasha's curse. This had gone from a bad fight to a disastrous fight. _He dropped Tessaiga he dropped Tessaiga oh crap he dropped Tessaiga ..._

Too many bad memories of Inuyasha fighting without Tessaiga's stabilizing influence rushed through her head. "Inuyasha! Osuwari!"

_I'm not the scared little girl he used to defend. I can take this guy out myself, without risking Inuyasha losing himself to his demon. _

He hit the ground with a snarl; the noise made Dark Knight turn back towards them and away from Blondie-boy.

She didn't spare a glance at Inuyasha to see who she'd just flattened -- the hanyou she loved or his terrible red-eyed alter-ego -- and the snarls that issued from his prostrate form could have come from either one of him. She just stepped over him and leveled another arrow at the armored knight. The Unseelie had on a slotted face plate; by feel, she pulled a narrow-tipped arrow designed to penetrate armor or scales out, knocked it, and let it fly at that face plate from five feet away as the demon rushed at her with sword pulled back for a killing blow.

She _focused _and the arrow blasted through the grill and into bone, flesh, brains ... with a spray of blood and ichor, the Unseelie collapsed forward. He was so close that his momentum carried him into her and knocked her down against the wall. And he was still moving! She screamed, planted both hands on that black metal armor and nailed him with every ounce of purifying energy that she could.

And yet he still moved ... limbs scrabbling at her ... muffled grunts issuing from under the armor ... jerky, angry movements ... was he trying to stab her? Rip her limb from limb?

She thrashed, trying to get free, panic giving her limbs strength, but the Unseelie wasn't a small man, and he was wearing a full suit of armor, and she swore and cried out and hit him with another burst of miko energy and it wasn't working, he wasn't stopping ... she was out of power ...

The creature was yanked away from her. She heard a crash of steel against a block wall. "Shit, woman, you sure like to make sure things are dead, don't you?"

Inuyasha stared down at her. He had a bruise on his forehead, and a sour expression on his face. Likely, he hadn't appreciated being _sat _much. But his eyes were clear, relatively calm, coherent.

She sat up, then accepted his hand when he pulled her to his feet. "Where's Tessaiga?"

"It's fine." He sounded amused -- he held the sheathed sword up. "Nice shot, by the way. Was I in the way?"

Oh. Apparently, he thought she'd _sat _him to get him out of the way so she could hit the bad guy. Well, given he'd suggested that same tactic this very morning after she'd accidentally hit him in the head with a boulder, maybe it was a logical assumption. She contemplated correcting this, then decided against it. Why hurt his feelings again so soon, by telling him she was scared he'd lose control in a fight if he wasn't holding his sword.

Belatedly, she realized he had picked the sword up and sheathed it _before _coming to her rescue. She glanced at the armored creature ... it was smoking faintly between the seams in the armor.

Inuyasha gave her an evil grin. "I think it was dead before it even touched you."

_Death throes_, she thought, with irritated realization. _I killed it with the arrow ... And then I purified a twitching corpse. Repeatedly. _

Inuyasha snickered as her expression betrayed her thoughts. "I think he's well done, Kagome. Smells like a barbeque."

_She _could smell the rich odor of roasting meat now -- you didn't need a inu-youkai nose for that. Kagome gagged a bit and moved away from the body, and towards the blond youkai man -- who was still doubled over around his chest, in obvious agony. Kagome knelt beside him and said, "My name's Kagome. That was a hell of a blow."

"I believe you're right," the man looked up at her. Tears of pain wetted his cheeks; he was breathing rapidly, and he was far too pale. "I'll survive, I'm not mortal ... Are you a Slayer?"

"Hai -- yes, I'm a Slayer." She tilted her head. "You're youkai, or something close enough to make no difference to me, correct?"

"Y-youkai? I'm what you people would call sidhe ..." He gathered his feet under himself; Inuyasha grabbed his elbow and helped him stand.

"Seelie Court. The good guys, if any of the sidhe can be considered _good _guys ..." Inuyasha said, smiling as he said it. "Already knew that. You smell like you're _Daoine Sídhe_, right?"

"Smart boy," the man responded, approvingly. "Or ... not so much a boy, I think." His eyes narrowed and he regarded Inuyasha intently. With profound respect in his voice he said, "Thank you for saving me, Elder One."

"Feh. Don't call me that." Inuyasha shook his head, denying the man's acknowledgement of his admittedly rather great age. "C'mon. I assume you want to speak to Buffy; she'd be the one who claims to lead the Slayers. We're headed there -- we can take you with us."

"I thank you," he said. "My name is ..." his name was about fourteen syllables long. "Call me Kavan."

"Inuyasha." Her hanyou was actually being polite, for once -- Kagome was pleased to see him calmly extend a hand in greeting.

Kavan clasped it firmly, despite the pain he had to be in. "Ah. I've heard of you. You're one of the good guys."

"Sometimes," Inuyasha said, but he sounded pleased by the fact that the sidhe had heard of him, and knew he was a white hat. Then he sobered. In a very serious tone of voice, he told the Kavan, "And sometimes not."

"Heh." Kavan chuckled lightly, obviously hurting too much to laugh more. "I'll keep that in mind, Inuyasha."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

------------------

Author's note: Buffy _has _actually met Shippou, but it was very brief, in the middle of a fight, and she was going, "Oh, shit, it's _Spike!" _at the time, while Willow and Faith dealt with 'Sailor' ... she hasn't made the connection, Kagome's forgotten, and Inuyasha was a bit occupied at the time. (That's the official explanation, anyway ... LOL.)

------------------

Buffy still wasn't used to seeing Angel and Spike in the same picture; seeing them together and not trying (most of the time) to kill one another was still worthy of a double take. And it had both its advantages and disadvantages, really.

On one hand, the eye candy was wonderful -- Buffy stepped into Angel's office to find Angel behind his desk and Spike seated in a chair on the other side with his feet propped up on top of Angel's paperwork. Angel looked annoyed bordering on pissed; Spike was smirking at something that she'd missed in the minutes before walking through the doorway.

Yeah. Eye candy. And the pissed look from Angel and the smirk from Spike ... well, she'd gotten used to _that _dynamic over the last six months. Occasionally, they came to blows. Spike provoked, Angel reacted. Consistently. But the two could present a remarkably unified front when they agreed on a subject -- which was surprisingly often, even if they'd never admit it.

_And sometimes, that unified front is a pain in the ass. _Both of them turned twin frowns in her direction as she entered. "Oi! What's this ..." Spike began.

"... about you inviting Inuyasha here?" Angel finished.

_Okay, that's just weird_, she thought, with a mental laugh.

"I thought you liked Inuyasha?" She scowled at Spike, then transferred the dirty look to Angel on general principles.

They had developed an alarming tendency to present that unified front when they disapproved of her decisions as leader of the Slayers. Oh, neither of them challenged her (much) in public -- Spike, in particular, was sensitive to anything that might undermine her authority. But the vampires ganged up on her in private whenever she was in LA. Regularly. And half the time, they were right ... the other half of the time, they were just annoying.

"Don't look at me. I've never met him." Angel held his hands up.

"I _like _Rapunzel, don't get me wrong." Spike frowned at her. "But he's kindof ..."

"Harsh, abrasive, macho, and makes a terrible cup of coffee?" Buffy sighed. "Kagome seems to be able to keep him on a leash, though."

Spike made a strangled, snorting noise through his nose. "Yes. And I can tell you what that leash is _attached _to."

"Ya think?" Buffy shook her head. She couldn't quite get the image of Inuyasha, shirtless, wearing only a pair of cut-offs, out of her head. _Bad girl_, she thought, _One, he's taken, and two, he's more of a bad boy than even _I _like ... though the expression on Giles face would be entertaining ... he'd clean his glasses until they dissolved. And three, I'm in love with Spike._

Spike sighed, answering her question even though it had been rhetorical. "No, not really. Inuyasha would die for Chibi, but it's because he truly loves her. And Kagome would do the same for him."

"And Kagome's condition for helping us was that Inuyasha watch her back." Buffy ran a hand over her face. "I can't say it's entirely a bad thing; Inuyasha isn't going to go away, he _is _a good guy -- in a certain odd flavor of good -- and I figure we need to at least build a working relationship with him. Because I for sure as hell don't want to lose any more of my people to his claws because they were stupid."

"It's stupidity on your side that I'm worried about." Spike pointed a finger at her. "What if someone gets the bright idea to get a little bit of revenge for the slayers he's killed?" Spike gestured at himself. "_Been _there, Slayer."

She was silent. She'd promised Kagome that nobody in her inner circle would try to hurt Inuyasha ... but Giles and Robin had conspired to try to kill Spike in a room full of crosses, not too many years ago. And Spike had been emphatically under her protection and _needed _to win the fight with the First. He'd been their strongest fighter after her. And in the end, without Spike ... would they have won?

"And he's going to be a source of conflict among your rank and file -- people _haven't _forgotten about what he did. And they are already pretty divided, Buffy," Angel pointed out. "I'm just saying, it may be that Kagome and Inuyasha have more drawbacks than advantages ..."

"And speak of the devil now," Spike pointed with his chin towards the hotel's front door.

Buffy turned around in time to see the young slayer and hanyou enter.

"He's hurt." Spike's feet slid off Angel's desk and hit the ground with a thump. "Looks like they found a spot of trouble."

Angel's phone rang at that moment; he answered it impatiently, then said with the mouthpiece covered, "I've got to take this one, guys ..."

_Most likely, news from his contacts about the Unseelie, _Buffy thought; probably someone he couldn't say _later _to. They left Angel at his desk and hurried out to meet the new arrivals.

"Is that Shippou with them?" Buffy regarded the blond man walking behind Buffy with surprise. The guy was drop-dead gorgeous, even if he was walking stiffly and in obvious pain.

"I don't think so," Spike shook his head.

"I thought you knew him?" Buffy gave him a surprised look.

"Shippou's a shapeshifter; he's got a million different looks. That's not one I've ever seen, though, and it doesn't look like his style." Spike headed out the office door and towards the trio.

Buffy followed, assessing the damage with almost clinical detachment. Three and half years of leading a virtual army of Slayers and their supporters; she _knew _injuries. The blond guy was walking cautiously, stiffly, and taking very shallow breaths -- broken ribs, she guessed. He was wearing chain mail; she suspected that the way he was moving meant he'd been hit in the chest with something heavy during a fight.

Kagome wasn't hurt. Somehow, Buffy wasn't surprised by this.

Inuyasha was bleeding; the sleeve of his jacket was soaked through with gore, and it ran down the back of his hand in a slick red tide and dripped on the floor. There was a tear in his sleeve, and she could see an ugly gash in the skin underneath. _Sword, probably, or an axe_.

"You know, Rapunzel, you're not suppose to stop the sharp, pointy weapons with your flesh," Spike said.

"Fuck you," Inuyasha flipped the vampire off with a bloody hand.

"Oh, that's just nummy looking," Spike licked his lips.

Kagome sighed, rolled her eyes, and muttered something about _testosterone _just loud enough for Buffy to hear that one word -- which meant both the hanyou and Spike heard everything she'd said. They gave her twin looks of disgust.

"Do you have some sutures and something we can splint that arm with?" Kagome asked Buffy. "Inuyasha heals so fast I don't think there's need for a doctor, but it's probably best if we stitch him up or it will take a lot longer for the scar to fade."

"Um." Buffy was a bit startled by the matter-of-fact way that Kagome asked. How often had she repaired her hanyou, to be so blasé about it? "Yeah. I can get that for you. What _happened_?"

The blond man answered before Kagome could and said quietly, "They saved me from those who would have killed me simply for who I am and not for any offense I have done them. -- Milady, I am afraid I haven't had the honor of your name."

His words were oddly accented, cultured, dignified. And her instincts were telling her he wasn't human, even if he wasn't the kitsune that Kagome claimed for a friend. Warily, she said, "Buffy Summers."

He obviously recognized her name; his eyes widened, flicked over her, and he said hesitantly, "I beg pardon; you are not what I expected. I expected you would be older; you must be truly brilliant to lead so many, so young ..."

To her surprise, and a bit of embarrassment, he stiffly dropped to one knee, bowed his head, and said gravely, "My name is ..." she hadn't a prayer of remembering that long string of liquid syllables, "... prince of the sidhe, grandson of Oberon."

"Uh." Buffy stared at him. _Truly brilliant my ass, _she thought, _I never set _out _to lead this crazy army of Slayers, it just happened that way. And I'm still not sure that Giles isn't really the one in charge; he just _lets _me think I'm boss._

"You might find it easier to call me Kavan," he said, with a trace of amusement, evidently having registered her dismay at that very long and complicated name. "Miss Summers, I seek your protection in exchange for my knowledge of the enemy we both face."

She blinked. _Blond elf hottie asking for asylum from the Slayers ... _didn't compute. "My protection?"

She wondered if he had pointy ears. His hair covered the tips; it was pulled back in a low, loose pony tail that hung to the middle of his back in a wrist-thick mass. _Pretty golden hair. _She followed that thought with a firm mental, _Down girl! You _have _a boyfriend._

"From mine own people as well as the Unseelie, alas. I am a prince in exile, and I have little hope for survival should you turn me away."

Buffy contemplated that for a moment. It wasn't the first time a nonhuman had approached the Slayers for protection, by far; sometimes it was a genuine request, sometimes it wasn't. They'd picked up a few good allies that way, and been betrayed a few times as well. She had no real idea which category he fell into -- genuine request or bad guy trying to get inside information. And if he was a prince of the Seelie, he likely had powers on par with Mab and her crew. This could be good or bad, depending on if he was for real or not.

"Sounds like you've got a good story to tell. Why don't you fill us in after we fix Inuyasha up so he's not leaking all over the floor? It's pretty gross and given the number of times this floor's seen arcane spells drawn on it, spilling Rover's blood here makes me nervous." Buffy stalled for time, and wished she'd caught his whole name so she could have Willow hit the books for research on him.

To her surprise, that comment earned her a surprised snort -- almost a laugh -- out of Inuyasha, as well as Spike, behind her. She gave Inuyasha a startled look; she'd expected a snarl about the _Rover_ bit. _Huh. The dog-demon actually has a sense of humor. _

He suddenly gave her a wary look, shut his mouth, and she watched as his expression shut down. Guarded, cold, suspicious. He glanced down at his blood-covered hand, then wiped his palm on his jeans and made a fist. Coldly, he said, "I'll pay you for the medical supplies."

"That's really not necessary," Buffy sighed.

"I'll not take charity from ..."

"Inuyasha," Kagome said, "Be nice."

"I'll just shut my mouth, then," Inuyasha gave her a dirty look.

"Well, you know what they say about not saying anything all if you can't say anything nice ..." Kagome gave him a smirk. "Though in your case, if you followed that rule, you might as well take a vow of silence."

"Hey!" Inuyasha glared at her.

"It's true, dog-boy," she grinned at him.

"I do so say nice things!" Inuyasha might be seven centuries old, Buffy thought, but he sounded about seven.

"Do not." Kagome promptly met him at his own level. Or lower. _Kindergarten, _Buffy thought.

"Do so!"

"Do not!

Buffy met the elf's eyes. Kavan's quirked an eyebrow at her. Buffy shrugged. _Definitely kindergarten. The next thing I'm going to hear is, 'Teacher, he's looking at me!'_

"You're picking on me!" Inuyasha protested. She'd been close in her assessment of the maturity level of this fight, apparently!

"Am not."

"Are too!"

Kavan smirked. Buffy felt a grin tugging at her own lips. _This _was the half-demon and the Slayer who were so handily clearing out most of the LA basin's vampire population?

"I am not!"

"Yes you are!"

Buffy giggled, causing both of them to look at her. Inuyasha's eyes suddenly narrowed. "Oi! What are you laughing at, wench?"

"I am not a wench!" Buffy protested, trying to decide if she should be insulted.

"Yes, you are!" Inuyasha shot back.

"Am not!" She realized she'd been drawn into the argument, and at Inuyasha's level. She shut her mouth, met Kavan's eyes again -- he was smiling -- then said with as much dignity as she could muster, "The medical supplies are this way. Follow me."

Behind her, as she led the way up the stairs, Kagome said, "Are too ..."

"Am not!"

"Inuyasha?" Kagome said, sounding amused. "Am not what?"

"Umm." Inuyasha had clearly forgotten what the argument was about. "I don't and you do and I stand by my statements." He paused, "Don't ask me to explain what I just said, because I can't."

Kagome snickered -- Buffy almost did as well, remembering what had _started _the verbal spat. Then, sweetly, Kagome said, "Inuyasha?"

"Oh, fuck."

"Osurawi!"

Behind Buffy, _Thud_.

She whirled in time to see Inuyasha, sprawled on his face on the floor, lift a middle finger up in Kagome's general direction.

_Oh, shit, he's going to be furious when he gets up ... _Buffy's heart doubled in time. Was the other Slayer deliberately trying to provoke the hanyou?

Memories of this same creature in a homicidal rage surfaced ... she remembered overwhelming power, blinding speed, snarls, eyes that raged red, teeth, and heat and pressure as claws raked across her back, then gunshots ... Buffy fought down panic as she automatically assumed a defensive crouch, hands coming up. She found herself wishing for a weapon ... he'd _killed _Slayers.

"Kagome," Inuyasha propped himself up on his elbows, and said with a saucy grin, and completely ignoring Buffy's panic -- she thought he might have given her the very slightest glance, "_Are too_."

"Osuwari!"

_Thud_.

--------------------------

"Sit still." Kagome slapped Inuyasha on the back of the head, a casual cuff in response to his attempts to flinch away from her ministrations. "Stop fidgeting."

The hanyou sat (somewhat grumpily) in a chair in the room on the second floor they'd taken over for use as an infirmary. Shirtless, he had a physique that rivaled a classical roman statue -- pale skin unmarred by scars, chiseled muscles, and not a spare ounce of fat. Only his the dog ears and the amber in his eyes -- and his claws and fangs -- marked him as not human. That, and the sheer _power _that radiated off him. Any Slayer could tell he wasn't mortal.

"It hurts," Inuyasha complained, as Kagome washed the cut out with betadine soap and water.

"Whine, whine. I remember the time Sesshomaru put his fist all the way through your gut from the back to the front and you said it was just a scratch. Sit still _anyway_."

"I never said it was just a scratch!" Inuyasha protested, as Buffy had a startling revelation of just how tough Inuyasha might really be. _All the way through his guts? He doesn't even have a scar!_

Unrepentant, Kagome added, "And then Shippou and Miroku and Kaede had to use ofudas to seal you in a shed so you'd stop moving long enough to heal."

"Meh." Inuyasha said, in a tone that indicated a blatant lie, "I don't remember that."

"_I _do." She set the basin down that she was using for the washing, and said, "Buffy, I'm going to need some help here. You up for it?"

"Not letting her touch me," Inuyasha said, sullenly, before Buffy even had a chance to beg off -- because stitches were icky and she couldn't imagine _helping _with them. She was boggled that Kagome was so casually contemplating sewing Inuyasha's cut up like it was a bit of casual mending.

"Fine, I'll go find Spike." Abruptly, Buffy remembered that she didn't like this creature much, didn't trust him at all, and she still wasn't convinced that _killing the hanyou _might not become a front-burner problem at some future date. He was violent, dangerous, and ... now he was viewing her with a bit of a smirk.

"You know I can smell people's emotions," Inuyasha said, with a sneer. "You're scared of ..."

"Knock it off." Kagome swatted him again. His ears flattened and he ducked his head. "Sorry, Buffy."

"Don't apologize to her," he said, in a tone that was sullen, hurting, and somehow very impulsive -- utterly unplanned. He blurted out, "_She_ hasn't, to me, for what happened."

_About Amelia_, he meant.

His tone was fare more serious than it had been a minute before. Kagome _didn_'_t _hit him again -- instead, she squeezed his shoulder silent and gave Buffy a searching look. Likely seeing what her reaction would be, Buffy .

And what was she supposed to say? She wailed silently, _But I didn't do it. Kennedy did. And then you attacked me and damn near killed me after killing her! _

_And what are we supposed to do when faced with snarling demons -- say, _"Gee, are you good guys?"

She _really _wished Inuyasha had calmly and coherently told her, "Hey, I'm a friend of the owner!" instead of, "Get the fuck out of my face, bitch, and go sit down!" Because things might have gone very, very, differently if he had.

_It's not my fault. Why should I have to apologize ..._

"Feh. Thought so." Inuyasha turned his head so he was staring away from her. His jaw was set angrily.

"Buffy, why don't you go get Spike. It's probably best." Kagome said, quietly. She glanced over at Kavan. "We'll need a bunch more bandages than you have here to strap up his ribs, too."

------------------

After Buffy left, Kavan spoke up for the first time -- he was seated on the hotel room's bed, back very straight, obvious lines of pain in his body. "Is there a problem between you and Buffy Summers, Elder One?"

"Fuck yeah," Inuyasha snapped, then took a deep breath, and said, "Look, you're new, you don't know. Buffy's friend killed my wife about three and a half years ago. We'd been married four and a half centuries. Then she sicced a bunch more little girls after me ..." He paused, then added with considerable annoyance, "And don't call me Elder. Call me Inuyasha -- shit, call me dog-boy or even gods-damned Rover. Just don't call me _Elder_. I'm not some damned old grey-bearded man sitting in a hut and dispensing bad advice."

"Yet you work with her?" Kavan completely ignored Inuyasha's rant about being called _Elder_.

"Kagome agreed to help her out." Inuyasha glanced at Kagome. He sighed. "Probably, it's the right thing to do. She agreed we'd help Buffy with the Unseelie, and Kagome's a lot better equipped to deal with them most Slayers."

"I sensed you are a witch -- you are a Slayer, also?" Kavan asked curiously.

"Miko, actually. It's kindof like a witch -- I can sense youkai and demons, and I can purify things. I don't do spells -- though I'm hoping I can learn." She studied him curiously. "You feel almost exactly like a youkai to my senses -- one of the higher types."

"Mm. I'm not surprised; our people are related fairly closely." Kavan closed his eyes.

"You want to lay down a bit?" Kagome suggested. "We'll get your ribs taped up as soon as we get Inuyasha to stop bleeding."

"They'll be healed by nightfall," he said, tightly. "It's really not necessary."

"Yes, but you'll feel better with some support around them until them. Trust me, I know about broken ribs. Occupational hazard for Slayers." Kagome smiled at him. _He's got the same accelerated rate of healing that Inuyasha has. _"No sense in hurting more than you have to."

"I suppose you are right," he said, and returned her smile with a nod of acknowledgement. "You are kind of heart."

"Yeah," Inuyasha reached his good hand out and ruffled her hair. "I haven't been able to break her of that. Still working on it."

She snorted, and ducked away from his fingers. "I'd have to be kindhearted to put up you with you, asshat."

"Hey!"

The room door opened at that moment, admitting Spike -- plus a dark-haired vampire, and a dark haired girl behind the vampire. Kagome realized this must be Angel; her assumption was confirmed when Spike hooked his thumb over his shoulder at the man. "'S here's Angel, and the kid's Dawn. Angel, Dawn -- Kagome, Inuyasha, and Prince ..." _Spike _managed to say Kavan's full name. Somehow, Kagome wasn't surprised; Spike was a good bit smarter, better educated, and more perceptive than he let on.

"Kavan," corrected the Seelie prince. "Please. Otherwise I'll feel responsible when you dislocate your tongues."

Dawn giggled. _Young_, Kagome diagnosed, seeing the covert glances the girl was sending the Seelie's way. Had she ever been that young? Yeah, probably. She gave Dawn a second look, and noted ruefully that _young _meant they were almost the same age. _And age is relative; I swear, Inuyasha is _still _a defiant teenager at seven-hundred-something years old. _

"Hi." Angel extended a hand out to Inuyasha to shake, earning points in Kagome's mind -- most of Buffy's people acted like Inuyasha was a carrier of the plague, at best. _But according to Spike, Angel's really not Buffy's 'people' -- they were lovers once, friends still, but he doesn't take orders from her and they don't always see eye to eye. And her people don't trust him, something about him losing his soul once ... _

Inuyasha grasped the hand with a grunted, "Hey."

Angel offered his hand to Kagome as well. It wasn't until she touched his cool fingers though that it occurred to her that she _knew _this vampire from somewhere. He apparently came to the same realization at the same time, because casual interest turned to a hard stare. "We've met," he said, frowning at her. It wasn't a question.

"Where?" She asked.

"I'm not sure." There was suspicion in his voice; he was another hero who'd had a hard life, Kagome suspected. How well she knew that type ...

"Oi, you know the Boss Puppet, Kagome?" Spike asked.

_There has _got _to be a story behind that nickname ... I wonder if Spike would tell it if we got him drunk enough some night at Take Two, _Kagome thought, with amusement.

"Spike!" Angel protested, clinching Kagome's hunch of _story there_. "Don't call me that. And ... I'm sure of it. Where ...?"

A flash of memory: a dark haired man with a sword, fighting shoulder to shoulder in an alley, against an endless horde of demons. "Oh! That was _you_ in the alley. I always wondered. I figured you were dead!"

"Alley?" It was taking Angel longer to place her. And she guessed _alley _wasn't particularly descriptive or helpful, given both their occupations.

"With all the demons. About two and a half years ago. There was a dragon -- I shot it -- and then a million demons and you were there and we fought together for a bit. I thought you'd gotten dusted." Kagome grinned. "Glad to see you didn't; I might not be alive if not for you."

Angel said, after a moment's startled silence, "... still not sure how I survived that fight -- that was _you_? I can say the same for you. We must have fought back to back for a couple of hours."

"That was _you_ that shot the dragon?" Spike was suddenly staring at her with uncomfortable intensity. "Then I owe you as well, Chibi. I think that thing was about to swallow me whole."

She remembered ... the dragon had been carrying a blond man who she'd assumed had already been dead. Man, not vampire, and so he had survived.

"You were both there?"

"More to the point, why were _you _there, Chibi?" Spike said, curiously. "That had to have been pretty close to when you arrived in LA."

"It was my 'Welcome to LA' greeting, actually," Kagome said, with a short laugh. "I'd just arrived that night. Some idiot of a vampire tried to make a snack out of me -- first vampire I'd ever seen -- I dusted him in that alley and then the next thing I knew I was in the middle of that fight." She scratched her head. "I sort've found out about being a Slayer by the sink-or-swim method."

"Oi," Inuyasha spoke up, "You knew how to be a Slayer before you ever were one."

"True. But the super powers sure make life easier," she smirked.

Spike snorted; Angel smiled faintly; Kavan grinned. Inuyasha rolled his eyes. Dawn asked curiously, "You were Slaying as a potential?"

"Pretty much. It's a long story involving following dog-boy around half of medieval Japan." Kagome eyed the younger girl -- she had a distinctly odd aura that wasn't even remotely human. It took her a minute before realizing that the girl's aura reminded her of the power emanating from the Bone Eater'sWell, of all things. Doubtless, she was some sort of witch. _Not _a Slayer.

"Love to hear it," Dawn said sounding highly interested, then nodded at Inuyasha. "You needed help stitching him up?"

"Yeah. Let's get it done." Kagome grabbed a sterile pack of sutures and needles from the tray of supplies that Buffy had provided her.

"Joy." Inuyasha presented his arm, complete with gaping, bloody three inch gash. "It's amazing: you can't sew a button back on a shirt, but you think you can fix my ..."

"Wuss." That came from Dawn, not Kagome. "Big scary demon boy's frightened of a little bitty needle?"

"No!" He gave the her a sideways look, then shut up. He presented his arm for the sewing.

_Heh. She figured him out in about two seconds. _Smart _girl._

Kagome grinned behind his back. Inuyasha was so predictable -- he'd bitch, whine, and moan to her all day, because she was safe. Put him in front of strangers, particularly strange _women, _and he was suddenly a tough guy. "Here." She handed Dawn a pair of latex gloves. "Put those on, then hold the lips of the wound together for me."

It took them only a few minutes to patch Inuyasha up. By the end of it, Kagome had concluded that at least _one _of Buffy's people had people-handling skills; Dawn had Inuyasha eating out of her hand by the end with a combination of flattery and friendly teasing.

Arm stitched up, Inuyasha favored her with one of his shy, wary smiles -- the one that said, _Hey, you might be okay._

Dawn clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Okay, he _is _as tough as he looks."

"Tougher," Inuyasha bragged.

Kagome poked him in the ribs, skillfully finding a ticklish spot. He promptly bent double with a startled, girlish, shriek. Dawn chortled in amusement. Kagome poked him again. "Uh-huh. Tough guy."

"Hey! That wasn't necessary!" He held his hands up defensively.

"No, but it was fun .." she wiggled fingers in the direction of his chest, and Inuyasha shot across the room and out of tickling distance, nearly colliding with Spike.

Spike quirked an eyebrow. Kagome snickered at Inuyasha's horrified reaction. Inuyasha pointed a finger at him, "Don't _even _try it, man. I'll bite your fingers off if you do."

The other eyebrow rose to match the first.

"Fuck this, I'm going to go feed the parking meter for the Jeep," Inuyasha growled, fleeing out the door.

Dawn said, with an amused laugh, after he was gone, "He's not what I expected."

Kavan's light chuckle made them all turn to face him; he was so quiet it was easy to forget he was there. "I could say the same thing."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

---------------------

Others were arriving for the briefing Buffy had planned on the Unseelie threat -- she heard voices in the lobby as she and Xander climbed the stairs from the basement. Louder than the casual conversation of arriving Slayers and support staff, she also overheard:

"Am not ..."

"Are too!"

It sounded as if Kagome and Inuyasha were at it again. Apparently, they'd come down to the lobby after fixing Inuyasha's arm. Xander gave her a look of bemusement, obviously recognizing their voices. Buffy rolled her eyes in response. "So far, he hasn't bitten anyone."

"Bad joke, Buffy," Xander said, with a frown. He'd _trained _some of the girls that the hanyou had killed.

The argument abruptly stopped as they emerged from the hall and into the lobby. Inuyasha, nostrils flared, gave Xander a short, sharp look. Buffy remembered Spike telling her that Inuyasha's sense of smell was so good he could practically read minds -- or at least, emotions -- with it. Kavan, behind them, glanced quickly back and forth between them, but said nothing. Buffy made a mental note that she needed to interrogate their latest refugee from the forces of evil in the very near future ... she was just so damned busy, and he was being so nice and quiet and unassuming.

Maybe she'd let Andrew conduct the briefing with Kagome and several other newbies, and go have a chat with Kavan while Andrew filled them in.

Inuyasha's ears slowly went flat, and he gave Xander an unreadable look before turning his back to both of them. With a graceless thump, he sat down, arms folded, facing the doorway, at Kagome's feet. Kagome met Buffy's eyes, vented an exasperated groan, then reached down, grabbed Inuyasha by the elbow, and adroitly yanked him back to his feet. "Inuyasha, be polite."

"Feh." Inuyasha apparently felt that his point was made, though he gave Kagome a _very _dour look. And Buffy couldn't exactly blame him for the attitude; she'd heard that Xander had said some insulting things while Sesshomaru had been holding her captive. _He might be rude, crude, and violent, but he's not an animal. And Xander managed to imply that he was -- and insult Kagome in the process. _

"That goes for you, too," Buffy said to Xander, because she could practically _feel _him quivering with a desire to make a cutting remark. "Be polite."

_Probably, I should make sure that Xander and Inuyasha are not left alone in a room together. Because Xander _still_, after all these years, says insulting things before he thinks -- and you can't get away with that with Inuyasha._

Except ... Buffy found she couldn't actually visualize Inuyasha turning on Xander with claws and fangs over a rude remark. Instead, the image that came to mind was Inuyasha snorting, and turning his back, and summoning a great deal of dignity and outsized pride. Maybe a cutting remark in response. But not violence, not in response to just harsh words.

_Is that right_? Buffy wondered. Kagome had seemed to think that Inuyasha didn't respond with violence unless sorely provoked. And she'd seen Inuyasha _grin _in response to being sniped at by Kagome.

_Gotta admit, we did provoke him._

"Riiight," Xander drawled out, in response to her order. That got an ears-pinned narrow-eyed look from the hanyou, and a snort, before he again turned his back. This time, Kagome didn't make him turn around again. Instead, she glared at Xander before she squeezed Inuyasha's shoulder gently.

"Thank you for this," Kagome murmured to Inuyasha, too low for Buffy to hear, but she could read Kagome's lips. "I know this is hard."

"Feh." The half-demon snorted. "Harder for Xander than me, apparently. _He's _the one who's got a problem. I _am _behaving, as you put it."

Kagome's face was turned away from Buffy when she responded, but whatever she said made Inuyasha's ears relax a bit.

Buffy sighed too. It was going to be a _long _briefing, and she'd just decided that Kavan would have to wait ... she didn't want to risk Xander unsupervised by herself or Willow, in the same room with Inuyasha. And if that was Inuyasha on his best behavior, she hated to think what he was like when he _wasn't _making an attempt to 'behave' ...

Then Kagome did something that mystified Buffy at first. She asked, "Do you have anything planned for dinner?"

"Probably order pizza," Buffy replied, somewhat blankly.

"Inuyasha will fetch." Kagome said, which Buffy realized got the hanyou out of the hotel for at _least _half an hour -- and when he returned, it would be bearing food, something inclined to make at least some of her people friendlier towards him. _Brilliant, _Buffy thought. "Inuyasha?"

"Fetch?" Inuyasha lifted an eyebrow at her.

Kagome groaned at the inadvertent pun he'd pointed out. "It's a figure of speech, dog-boy."

"Don't want to leave you here alone," Inuyasha grumbled, glancing over his shoulder at Buffy and Xander.

"Don't insult us," Xander said, almost a growl of his own in his voice. "If we wanted both of you dead, you'd be toast."

"Didn't succeed before," Inuyasha gave him a contemptuous look. "You tried for three years."

"That," Xander said, "Was because we were distracted by other big bads and we didn't actually realize what we were facing in you. Figured the first couple of times you killed our squads were flukes -- inexperienced Slayers who weren't as good as we thought they were. We won't make that mistake again ..."

"Some gratitude I get for saving your leader's ass from my brother," Inuyasha said, with narrowed eyes and quite a bit of anger in his voice.

"Inuyasha," Kagome said patiently, "If they kill me, you have my full permission to get Kirara and Shippou and anyone else you want to round up -- Sesshomaru might even help on general principles -- and have a little Slayer hunt. 'Kay? But I don't think that's going to be necessary."

Buffy realized that the girl had a sneaky sense of humor that made Buffy actually look forward to working with her. She assured Inuyasha, "It's not going to be necessary. I promise, Inuyasha, she'll be fine."

"Feh. Kagome could kick your butt again if she had to."

"Inuyasha?" Kagome said, sweetly, but with warning in her voice.

"You're getting rid of me again." He turned amber eyes on her, frowning, arms folded.

"Damn right I am," Kagome glanced at them, then turned around, put her hands on his shoulders and said loud enough for Buffy to hear, "They've got far more of a problem with you than you do with them. I _know _you can mind your manners and you've been doing a good job and I'm really happy about that. I'm just trying to get you out of here so that Buffy can sort out _her _people with you out of the way."

"Feh. Okay. Pizza?" He sounded soothed, somewhat.

"Hey, I _can _behave too!" Xander protested.

Kagome gave him a _look _that was almost exactly matched by Buffy's skeptical _look_. Buffy fished in the inside pocket of the jean jacket she was wearing, pulled out a wallet with a few credit cards and cash in it, peeled six twenties off a stack of mostly smaller bills, and stepped closer to the hanyou. He turned around at the noise of her footsteps, and she extended her hand out with the money in it. In the calmest, most matter-of-fact voice she could summon, Buffy said, "Can you get eight large pizzas, four dozen wings, and five or six two-liters of cola?"

"Uh." Inuyasha took the money. His fingers brushed hers; his hand was warm and felt perfectly normal -- any person's hand, if you didn't look at the claws. With a blink at her, he said, "Any preference on toppings?"

The conversation suddenly felt so mundane it was surreal. She was giving a pizza order to the guy who'd killed twelve of her girls as if he was just one of the gang. It was absurd. Buffy said, "Nobody here's fussy. Four pepperoni, two cheese, two veggie, I guess."

"Okay." He headed out the door, pausing twice to look over his shoulder at her. She guessed he was still reluctant to leave his fiancé. Mistrustful. And she really couldn't blame him for that.

Kagome turned angry brown eyes on Xander when Inuyasha was gone. "Do me a favor, Pirate-boy, and _don't _provoke him deliberately."

"What, is he gonna kill me?" Xander said, challengingly. Buffy _winced _at the 'Pirate-boy' crack ... Xander had it coming for being an ass, but still. He was sensitive about his missing eye.

Kagome said, coldly, "No. But I have to listen to him bitch later about how unfair it is that he can't beat you up. And if I get tired enough of listening to him, I may decide to look the other way. Y'know what I mean? He _is_ being good." Kagome's lips pressed together until they were a thin angry line.

"He just turned his back on me. I assume that was an insult," Xander said, with equal tension, and a tone that could only be described as condescending.

Kagome suddenly sighed, ran a hand over her face, and, at Buffy's guess, forcibly reined her anger in. Buffy, after three years of leading her own kind, had learned that 'Slayer' and 'hot temper' were almost synonymous and she recognized the look of frustration on Kagome's face rather well. Finally, Kagome said, "Look, Xander, that's just idiot-boy's version of counting to ten before speaking. He's _trying _not to mouth off at anyone."

"That's ... dysfunctional." Xander snorted. "He's kinda weird."

Kagome was again silent before responding; Buffy thought that perhaps Inuyasha wasn't the only one to count to ten before speaking. "One thing you need to know about Inuyasha is that his social skills are really lacking. I used to get horribly mad at him before I started to figure that out -- and then I learned that once you understand where he's coming from and treat him with some respect, he's _really _a nice guy. You guys have no clue what he's really like. Just -- you have to realize -- the things that we do to relate to people that are second nature for you or me are almost impossibly _hard _for him."

"Because he's a demon?" Xander said, then seemed to fall silent, as if he was thinking.

_Heh. _Buffy glanced at him, wondering if his thoughts had suddenly gone in the same direction that hers had. Buffy could name another demon with very poor social skills -- one who Xander had truly loved. Kagome might not realize it, but she'd just given Xander some serious food for thought, somewhat accidentally -- Buffy recognized a generic rant when she heard it. Kagome had been stewing on this issue for awhile, and Xander was just a convenient target.

Idly, Buffy wondered what Anya would have made of Inuyasha. Or vice versa.

Kagome was much calmer when she answered, perhaps in response to Xander's silence. She had his attention. He was _listening_. "Maybe a little of it is because of that -- his youkai half is _strong_ and it does influence how he thinks, because he behaves a little differently when he's fully human. He's calmer, more sensitive to his own emotions ... However, I think most of his ruder behavior is because he pretty much raised himself from the time he was four or five years old -- his mother died and he was tossed out by her family, and then he was almost entirely on his own for a century and a half. I've met plenty of youkai -- Shippou is one, and Myoga, and even Koga -- who have _far _better manners than my Inuyasha will ever have."

She lifted a shoulder in half a shrug. "He had no friends for over a century, Xander. No parents. Nobody to tell him what was right, or what was wrong. Nobody who loved him, nobody who would even _talk _to him. He was very different and very alone ... Humans thought him a monster; youkai think he's an abomination and a weakling -- at least, until they meet his claws. Is it any wonder he finds friendship and basic social skills difficult? He may be seven centuries old now, but he spent the equivalent of almost two human lifetimes and almost all his childhood _alone_." She glanced in the direction that Inuyasha had gone. Her eyes had softened as she spoke of him, "He was so much worse when we first met, you know. He was betrayed by the first person in his life that he loved, much less trusted ... I ... I made a connection with him. And there were other people, good friends of ours, who helped him too ... and then after I was gone, I think Amelia helped him a lot too."

Kagome looked up at Xander, eyes very soft now. "But Xander, Inuyasha is _always _going to be a little bit ... harsh. A little different. It's simply who he is, and after seven centuries, he's not gonna change. You can either take him as he is or not, it's simply up to you. On the whole, I love who he is. But then, I've taken the time and made the effort to win his trust and get to know him."

Laughter rang through the lobby doorway, ending Kagome's speech abruptly. She turned, and Buffy looked up, to see a pack of young slayers enter the lobby. There were half a dozen of them, all her new recruits -- none of them were older than mid twenties, and all were lean and beautiful and lively. Slayers _lived _-- that was something that Buffy had learned by observation of many of her kind. With uncertain futures, death surrounding them and often dealt by their own hands.

She knew all but one of them -- the new girl was Japanese too, a little younger than Kagome, and -- where had they found her? Oh, yeah, Kyoto. Buffy brightened a bit. The girl barely spoke any English, but Kagome was fluently bilingual. This would work out nicely, having both of them working on this problem together. What was her name ... _Hanako_? Yeah, Buffy thought that was right.

"Kagome, can I introduce you to someone?" Buffy said. "She's a newbie, she's, like, totally having trouble with English and nobody around here speaks Japanese but you and Andrew. And I suspect she's getting tired of having only Andrew to talk to ..."

"Aa?" Kagome breathed out, in an odd tone of voice. She was staring at the new girl, mouth hanging open.

The new girl looked at Kagome, then _looked _at her, frowning, eyes narrowing.

"Do you know each other?" Buffy asked, curiously.

"Aa ... no! She just reminds me of someone." Kagome had gone pale under her olive skin; she fidgeted in place. "Reminds me of someone a lot, actually." Under her breath, she muttered something in Japanese; Buffy caught the name 'Kikyo' which she knew from her earlier research was Kagome's past incarnation.

Kagome smiled -- it was an _odd _smile -- and said something in Japanese to the girl. Hanako promptly grinned an enormous grin, hurried over, and the two bowed at each other -- and then both launched into excited Japanese. Buffy didn't have a clue what they were saying, but apparently, it was friendly greetings because both girls were soon grinning and giggling.

Still, there was something very odd in Kagome's expression -- a distance in her eyes, and a faint smile playing around her lips that had nothing to do with meeting a sister Slayer who was -- by all evidence -- _very _happy to be able to communicate clearly with someone.

"C'mon," Buffy said, finally. "We've got a briefing for you and the rest of the newbies down in the basement. You two can have a slumber party or something later."

Kagome _snorted_, suddenly. Cryptically, she said, "I think we've had a few slumber parties already, in a past life ..." then she shook her head, "Y'know, Buffy, sometimes the hands of fate are cruel. And sometimes ..." she glanced at Hanako, who had her head tilted to one side and who was studying Kagome rather curiously. "... sometimes, the hands of fate are just _cool_."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

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Author's Notes: I've a new blog at :-)

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Hanako was ... eerie ... Kagome decided, watching the other slayer covertly.

Sometimes, she wondered if Sango hadn't been a Slayer in the supernatural sense, not just the professional sense. It would have explained a _lot_ about her. And it would have been suitably ironic, and Kagome was convinced that the gods of fate were passionately in love with irony.

Hanako didn't look completely like Sango -- she was taller and indefinably healthier, for one. Better nutrition and health care would easily explain the physical differences between the two even if they'd been identical twins, which they weren't.

The young slayer wore her hair differently from Sango too; it was pulled back into a tight french braid to the nape of her neck, then allowed to flow free in a ponytail past her shoulders. But her eyes were the same, as was the way she moved, and the way she smiled. Kagome had _known _from the moment she'd seen the other girl walk through this door who her soul had once been.

But even though the resemblance was utterly striking they weren't the same. That had been obvious the first time Hanako had _giggled_ -- because Sango had never giggled like that. Had Inuyasha experienced the same mental whiplash with her own similarities to Kikyo? Kagome wondered.

This was a Sango who'd never known the loss of all her friends, family, village. Sango's entire world had been wiped out by Naraku, except for Kohaku, who'd been a world of tragedy all his own. This was a Sango who'd grown up in Kyoto in an ordinary neighborhood in the modern world and who'd become a Slayer only through a twist of fate. Her life had been good, even inoffensive, until relatively recently.

_But she has a fate that was probably preordained. Some souls are just _meant _to save the world, repeatedly_. _We're born for it. We can't escape it. It is who and what we are._

"So how long have you been in America?" Sango asked -- or, rather, Hanako, Kagome reminded herself, and she knew sooner or later she was going to screw the names up and call this not-Sango girl by the wrong name eventually.

"About three and a half years." She followed Buffy and Xander down the steps to the hotel's basement -- where she was unsurprised to find a gymnasium set up, complete with a large open area for combat training, and various training weapons hung on the walls. Spike had mentioned to her that the Watcher's Council was renting space from Angel for training and boarding of Slayers for an LA branch of Slayer School. The school was just getting started.

"Your English sounds very good."

"Yours isn't bad," Kagome said, politely. Hanako's English was actually very rough; Kagome got the feeling it was entirely based on what she'd learned in school. "You'll learn more pretty quickly. Though I warn you, Buffy kinda uses a lot of slang, it's hard to understand her sometimes. And Spike -- have you met Spike yet?"

Hanako shook her head, a negative.

"Spike uses a whole _different _set of slang because he's from Britain. Though he's good about explaining if you ask him. You'll like Spike -- he's a vampire, but he's a good vampire. He's got a soul." Kagome realized she was babbling, mostly because Hanako made her nervous, and she trailed off and grinned apologetically. "Sorry, I talk a lot."

"It's okay," Hanako said, as Buffy directed everyone to sit on the floor. "It's good to actually _talk _to someone. The only other person here who speaks any Japanese is Andrew, and he's kindof a geek. Sweet boy, but the conversation tends to be limited to his interests, if you know what I mean."

Kagome snorted agreement. "I know!" She'd run into Andrew regularly while in the company of Spike. The last time had been at Take Two, and a mildly drunken Andrew had expounded on the merits of Dragonball Z for at least an hour, ignoring her polite hints and Spike's not-so-polite requests to change the subject. She'd _finally _succeeded in getting him directed to another topic, but only by bringing up Star Wars.

"So do you have a boyfriend?" Hanako asked.

Kagome held her hand up, displaying her engagement ring. "Yeah. Fiancé. Uh, I'll warn you, he's half-demon and he's got some history with the Slayers. There's some very bad feelings there. I hope you'll give him a chance; he's a good guy, just a bit rough around the edges ..."

"Half-demon?" Hanako prompted, sounding intrigued.

"Inu-youkai hanyou," she said, then added, "Most of our adventures were written down by Kaede, as dictated by Inuyasha and Miroku," she hesitated half a second, "and by Sango. I've got a copy of her journal if you want to read it. At any rate, you'll meet Inuyasha in a little bit."

_Should I tell her who I think she is? _Kagome wondered, then decided, _No. I can personally attest to how hard it is to wonder if people see you as _you _or if they see you as a substitute for someone very dear and very long dead._

Kagome asked curiously, "Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Nah," Hanako shook her head. "Had a guy in Japan, but we broke up when the Slayers drafted me. He couldn't deal."

_I wonder where Miroku is, if his soul is reincarnated also_, Kagome thought, mournfully. _Miroku could've dealt. Miroku would've _followed _her, with good cheer. _But there wasn't any guarantee that this incarnation of Sango would ever find Miroku, or that Miroku was even alive. Though she'd certainly keep an eye out for a familiar face, a gentle voice, and a slyly lecherous hand and promptly play matchmaker if she found him!

Buffy cleared her throat, and Kagome realized, to her embarrassment, that she and Hanako had been talking loudly in Japanese when everyone else had fallen silent. She glanced around the room, noting that there were eight new Slayers besides her and Hanako, plus Andrew, Spike, Angel, and Xander. And Willow, who was just walking in the door and who wasn't dressed for LA summer weather. The witch had on a heavy sweater and gloves and a jacket over one arm.

"Kagome, will you translate for Hanako? I want to make sure she understands this," Buffy requested.

"Sure ..."

At that moment, there was a familiar prip! from the open doorway that led to the stairs. Kirara bounded into the room and then stopped short, eyes gone wider than usual. She stood motionless, the absolute center of everyone's attention, eyes fixed on Hanako.

_Yeah, that clinches it ... _Kagome thought, with amusement. If she'd had any doubts about Hanako's past life, Kirara's reaction dispelled them.

The cat opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. No noise came out, not even the tiniest of meows. Suddenly, she sat down, cocked a back leg up, and started licking it. Her pose said, _I wasn't really surprised, not at all. _

"That's Kirara," Kagome said, for the benefit of the rest of the room. "She fights with Inuyasha and I."

"Against what, mice?" One of the new slayers inquired, with a laugh. Kagome glanced over, noting she was a brunette with anglo features and a silver ball piercing her upper lip. _New, _Kagome diagnosed, _Not familiar with demons. _

Spike said dryly, "Rodents of unusual size, maybe."

Andrew snickered. Buffy rolled her eyes. Xander choked out a laugh. By their responses, Kagome assumed Spike had told them what Kirara turned into; Spike had seen the cat up close and personal a few times. He'd been duly impressed.

However, she got the feeling she'd just missed a Western cultural reference -- she spoke the language well enough to get by after three years here, but the culture was something else. Sometimes, things that Americans did and said just left her baffled. For that matter, she'd missed a sizable chunk of general pop culture by living in the Feudal era for so long ... She looked at Hanako and shrugged and said in Japanese, "He said against 'unusually big rodents' ... don't ask me why that was funny ... Kirara's a neko-youkai and she can transform into a cat the size of a small horse."

"She's cute," Hanako said, dubiously.

"C'mere, Kirara, I think Buffy has a lecture to give ..." Kagome patted the floor, hoping Kirara would cooperate.

Kirara stood up, padded over, and stood in front of Hanako for a long moment before abruptly hopping into her lap. Hanako hesitantly scratched the cat's ears, and Kirara contentedly curled up, all three tails over her nose, purring happily.

"She likes you," Kagome said, for Hanako's benefit, because Hanako was clearly nervous. "She'd never hurt you."

"So. Any more interruptions?" Buffy inquired, a bit acidly. Kagome winced at the tone. "No? Good. I'm turning the floor over to Andrew."

Kagome mentally groaned. _And I'm supposed to translate _him _for Hanako_? _I don't even understand him when he speaks Japanese. Right. Thanks, Buffy._

The boy -- she couldn't think of him as anything other than an overgrown _boy _-- stood up. It amused Kagome to glance at the other Slayers, most of whom were very new and had never met Andrew before. He was currently wearing tight jeans, a silk shirt, and a duster that was very obviously styled on Spike's.

In truth, the guy wasn't actually bad looking. The jeans fit snugly over muscular legs; he _did _work out, and she could see under that silk shirt that he had quite a bit of definition and not much body fat. He moved like he'd had _some _combat training as well; that was standard for Buffy's non-Slayer people, so she supposed he could fight if he was forced into it. She distinctly remembered him squeaking and hiding in the bathroom when Inuyasha had gone full youkai in front of him, though -- and Inuyasha had been desperately sick at the time, and she'd promptly _sat _him, and there had been two Slayers, Spike, and Willow in the room.

_Coward_, Kagome diagnosed.

But the other Slayers were going _Yum_, mostly, at this point. Because Andrew, if you didn't know him, _was _a _yum _sort of guy.

She glanced again at them. Most were staring at him, as she'd assumed. One, the brunette with the pierced lip, glanced covertly at Buffy. And then did it again.

_Hmmm_, Kagome thought, smiling to herself. _Not Buffy, woman, but you might try that look on the red-haired witch and see where it gets you. Spike says Willow's between girlfriends at the moment._

"So. I'm Andrew and you guys are all Slayers, which, as you know, means you are uber-powerful hot babes who kick demon butt." Andrew grinned at them.

"What did he say?" Hanako whispered.

"Just that he thinks we're hot," Kagome said, in Japanese, with a roll of her eyes.

"Oh."

"I'm here to tell you about the worst enemy we have faced since this organization was founded. He is a General under Queen Mab, who we cannot touch because she does not live in this plain of existence and may no longer be living; none know. Our villain is a foul and desperate creature. Know him as fey or faery or sidhe, he is the offspring of a baoine sidhe and a mortal man, and by dint of great vile effort and treachery he has risen through the ranks of the unseelie forces for centuries until he has reached the pinnacle of his success and now he is a threat to us, to those we love, and to the whole world. In short, he's an apocalypse in the making. His name is Torin and we have come to despise him."

Kagome considered that speech, then summed it up for Hanako, "Bad guy's name is Torin. He's a hanyou cross between a banshee and a mortal man and he's got power."

"Two weeks ago, we thought to destroy him and sent two hundred of our best and brightest against his forces. A pitched battle was waged beneath the city streets of New York; we lost half our girls, and many more were wounded. Buffy herself took a blow from the foul sword of our fouler enemy ..."

Buffy cut him off suddenly. "Torin surprised us. We weren't expecting him to have hellhounds _or _turok-han, and he's got both. I came _this _close to killing the bastard anyway, but one of the damned hounds got me from behind. He tried to take my head off with his sword, but Spike hit him with a axe in the back and the blow got me in the arm instead. It'll heal. Torin was wounded, but our intelligence says he lived."

Since Kagome thought that Andrew was being too flippant about that many deaths, she wasn't surprised by Buffy's reaction, or the defensive tone in her words. Both Buffy and Andrew were undoubtedly in emotional agony of this -- and both were trying hard to conceal it from those outside their inner circle. Kagome wondered what Buffy's meetings with her Scoobies were like right now ...

Buffy gestured at her arm in its sling, grimly. "Girls, ninety-seven of us were killed that day. But we stopped Torin from opening a Hellmouth under New York City and beat him into retreat, back into the shadowy dimensions where he lives." She bit her lip for a moment, and Kagome finally saw anguish in the older Slayer's eyes. "I led those girls to their _deaths_. I cannot promise that it won't happen again, either. Some of you may die. Some of you know what we fight against already ..." Buffy glanced at Kagome. " ... some of you are new. This is for real. This is a real war, against real and true evil, and I've been fighting it since I was fifteen years old."

Silence, from the girls. Kagome took the brief break to explain the dialogue to Hanako, summing it up with, "Buffy pointed out we could get killed."

"I know," Hanako said, very quietly. "I've seen ..." she trailed off, and Kagome wondered _what _this alter-Sango had seen or had done that had brought her to the attention of the Slayers. Something bad, by the sudden dark look in her eyes.

Kirara pripped. Hanako absently scratched the cat's ears, head bowed.

Andrew cleared his throat. "Anyway, girls, this is what we found when we reached Torin's inner sanctum. They fled before us, into retreat but not defeat ..."

He had glossy 8X10 photos in his hands. He handed the stack to Kagome, who froze in horror even as her stomach flipped over with nausea.

Children. Dead children. Splayed out in a circle, tied to the ground then tortured to death, around the goat's head seal of a hellmouth.

"The ceremony they were doing wasn't completed," Buffy said, voice very tight and controlled, "We got there in time to stop them, and to temporarily close what they tried to open, but not in time to save the kids. Or we'd have much, much bigger problems. Kagome, one of the first things I want you to do for us is to get rid of that seal like you did here. I'll be sending you to New York with Wil tomorrow to deal with it."

"Of course," Kagome said. She would go, even though she remembered very little of erasing the last seal -- she'd done it with the last strength of her dying body as her life's blood poured out. She supposed she'd figure it out when she got there.

The next picture in the stack was of symbols carved -- or perhaps burned -- into the back of a dead little boy. Hanako said tightly, in Japanese, "Are these real?"

"Yeah." She handed the first two pictures to Hanako, who hastily passed them on to the next girl. "They're real ... oh, _shit_ ... these are real pictures, Hanako-san. They really happened."

"I want to _kill _this bastard!" Hanako hissed in English, managing that much of the language for Buffy's benefit. Her eyes narrowed into angry slits.

"Welcome to the club," Buffy said, with a dark smile that held quite a bit of predatory threat and no humor. "We want this guy _dead_. I haven't wanted a big bad _dead _like this in several years."

Spike snorted, apparently at some shared memory.

"This one's gotten personal. Torin's toast. He just doesn't know it yet." Buffy flipped her blond hair over her shoulders.

"What's an Unseelie want with a Hellmouth?" Kagome asked, passing the rest of the stack of photos to Hanako. She'd seen enough to know she _would _help with utter and righteous rage pushing her on, and she didn't need to look at anymore. She'd have nightmares enough as it was.

The photos had been in full color and the blood and organs were very, very bright. Memories of past battlefields rose, and Kagome could almost smell the meaty scent of the gore, the foul odor of shit, the tang of bile, all coating the inside of her nose with a stench so strong she could taste it... She swallowed back an urge to vomit, and rose, before Buffy could answer, and said, "Excuse me, I think I need some air ..."

Buffy nodded understanding and nobody tried to discourage her from leaving. _Children._ _He killed children._

She'd seen dead children before. _Naraku. This is another Naraku. _

Up the stairs and in the lobby, it was growing dark and Inuyasha wasn't yet back with the pizzas. However, Shippou was standing in the lobby, back to her, watching the door. _He probably brought Kirara with him, _Kagome realized.

"You can come downstairs, you know. Buffy's briefing us on the bad guys." The nausea faded as she focused on the welcome presence of a friend.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Something's wrong."

"What?" She followed his gaze. Outside, she could see nothing but normal city things -- cars, pedestrians, other buildings. It was dark; perhaps something was lurking in the shadows.

"I've been watching for maybe ten minutes. Something's wrong." Shippou said. "Can't you feel it?"

She closed her eyes and extended her miko senses. She could feel Shippou next to her -- and he was blindingly powerful, far more so than had been as a child in the Feudal era. She'd never seen him in a serious fight, but had a strong inkling he could more than hold his own. Shippou was full youkai, full grown, and had been raised by Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku and Kaede. Yeah. He could fight. If he had to.

The Slayers, and Spike and Angel, and Willow were almost directly beneath them in the basement.

And ... a growing power. It was faint, and she never would have felt it if Shippou hadn't said something.

"What is it?" Kagome said. "Inuyasha and I dealt with a couple Unseelie earlier."

"I don't know. I've been trying to figure it out." Shippou's hand rested on her shoulder, a protective gesture. Brotherly. He was worried for her safety, because whatever was coming would almost certainly be dangerous. That worry scared her. He added, "It's from deep within the earth, can you feel it?"

No, she couldn't -- she wasn't that sensitive. She shook her head.

"Where's Inuyasha?" He asked, bluntly.

"Getting pizza. He should be back soon."

"Call him and tell him to hurry." Shippou flashed her a grin that displayed slightly pointed canines. "I'm hungry."

She laughed, but pulled her cell phone out, because she knew what he really meant -- that Inuyasha's claws might be needed. He picked up on the second ring, and said, "Oi, woman, I'm coming, I'm coming!"

"Yeah, yeah, we're starving ..." The banter slipped easily from her lips.

Shippou grabbed her cell phone from her hand, apparently impatient with her for not coming directly to the point. He was more worried than he was letting on, she realized. That sobered her. He said shortly, "Inuyasha, it's me. There's trouble brewing."

She didn't hear his response, but Shippou grinned. "No, not the Slayers. Something else. Something massive. Somebody's messing with some big power. Can't you feel it?"

No, Inuyasha couldn't; he was less aware than Kagome herself was to power and magic. Shippou snorted a laugh at whatever Inuyasha had said, and grinned, and responded, "Yes, bring the pizzas. A good fight always makes me hungry ..."

It was then that the world outside the windows disappeared. She heard a burst of static from the phone at Shippou's ear; he hastily snapped it shut, thrust it at her, and put himself protectively between her and the glass doors. The city visible outside was simply _gone _... it had been replaced by a churning black nothingness, a void.

The lights went out.

Cries of surprise floated up from the basement. It was utterly pitch black. Kagome snapped her cell phone back open, and the green light revealed that Shippou had moved with silent, deadly speed to within a few feet of the doorway.

She followed, casting the light from her phone towards the door. The glass reflected some back, revealing ghostly images of her own frightened face, and Shippou's worried one. She could sense the power _now _-- it swirled around the building with frightening intensity. What radiated through the negligible barrier of that glass was vile evil. She could see swirls of insubstantial black fog curling against the glass, seeking a way in. Tendrils crawled around the cracks around the door, then dissipated in the clearer air inside.

"Miasma?" She asked, worried.

"Of some kind." Shippou's voice was loud in the dark silence. He sniffed. "It's not poisonous."

That was a relief. "You think this is the Unseelie?"

"It's a youkai attack of some kind," Shippou reached out and opened the door, to her surprise. The hair rose on the back of her neck as he stepped into that dense black fog. She reached out and grabbed the door as he walked further into the darkness -- her cell phone light was dim, and within a couple of strides she couldn't see him at all.

"Shippou?"

There was a sizzling _pop _and he reappeared, shaking his hand. "Thought so. There's a barrier." Her light illuminated his grin. "Bet you two slices of pepperoni that Inuyasha has it down in under five minutes."

"No bet, fox-boy," she was relieved when he stepped back inside. And he was right about Inuyasha and barriers.

"Kagome!" Buffy appeared, with the rest of the people following her close. They had a couple of flashlights; Spike cast his all around the room, obviously looking for threats lurking in the shadows. "You okay?"

"Yeah, fine. Buffy, this is Shippou ..." She indicated the kitsune with a nod. Buffy glanced briefly at him, then gave him a longer look when her flashlight illuminated his fox tail.

Shippou made a suddenly strangled noise. He'd seen Hanako when Spike's light had flickered over her. Under his breath, just loud enough for Kagome to hear, he muttered, "Ah, shit. Not her again."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

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Author's Notes: Of course, just when I say I won't be doing much writing of fanfic in the near future, I get depressed over the volume of rewriting that the (bleeped) original novel needs before it's fit for public consumption. I don't even know where to _start ... _oi. It's been a year since I looked at it and it hasn't aged well.

And on the web dev side of things, PHPbb hates me, and that's all there is to it. It's personal.

So, in frustration and depression, I wrote a chapter of Unseelie.

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Shippou had been reasonably sure that things were going to go for crap as soon as Kagome had called him early that morning to ask for his help. Slayers plus Kagome plus Inuyasha plus a youkai type Big Bad had given him an unpleasant premonition of trouble. He didn't need to have precognition to know he was likely in for a bad fight.

Still, he'd held out hope that it wouldn't be an unutterable disaster until he'd stepped into the hotel and felt building evil. Faint but unmistakable, he'd _known _this was going to be a really awful day. Trickster's instinct -- he could tell the difference between illusion of bad and really bad. This was going to be the latter.

Then he'd saw _her_.

And he'd known this was going to be an unmitigated fuckup of unprecedented proportions. Because it always was.

Inuyasha thought _he _had bad luck. He was convinced the soul standing before him and gazing at him with reasonably calm brown eyes was cursed by the ages.

"You're a kitsune, aren't you?" Hanako asked, in Japanese. She was calm. Unafraid of him -- perhaps she had some knowledge of kitsune, or perhaps she subconsciously knew him from buried memories from past lives. Either way, he was relieved he wasn't going to need to earn her trust. Depending on just how bad things were for her, that wasn't always a given.

Damnit ... he was _not _happy to _see her_. No, that wasn't true ... he was and would always be happy to see her. Because it was Sango on some level; they'd shared a past history where she _had _survived the bad guys and had lived to be old and grey and happy, with children of her own.

"Yeah," he said, answering her question about his species. "I am."

"How long have you known Kagome?" Hanako's casual acceptance of him was a bit of a relief. And a bit disturbing; he needed to have a few stern words with her about not assuming that demons were friendly based on their species or the behavior of the humans around them. But for now, at least, he wasn't dealing with, 'Eeek! It's a fox demon!' from her.

She watched as Buffy opened the glass door, stuck her head out, then recoiled as Buffy apparently sensed the barrier. She hastily shut the barrier and said something witty that made those who were close enough to her to hear chuckle.

_Not as long as I've known you_, Shippou thought, with some very black amusement. "Years."

"She seems nice."

"Aa, she is. She's like a sister to me," Shippou said. Once, that would have been _like a mother_, but he was both physically and biologically older than Kagome now. Weirdness lay there, but he was resolutely ignoring it. _Like a sister _worked, implying deep feelings without any hormonal attraction there. Because she really wasn't his type, and even if she was, Inuyasha would have his 'nads ...

_A grown man who still worships the ground she walks on_, Shippou thought. Because he did. And he always would.

"I don't think I've seen any kitsune this side of the ocean." Hanako said.

"You won't, either. There aren't many of us left, and fewer still who ever leave Japan." Shippou sighed. "Over a century ago, Inuyasha and Amelia left Japan because the situation there had simply become untenable. I followed." He lifted one shoulder up in a shrug, "Life was boring without the two of them around. And I, I just missed them."

"Amelia?"

"Inuyasha's late wife. She was quite something." Shippou answered a bit distracted as he watched Willow open the glass doors and step through it. Concerned that Willow might try to take the barrier down herself, raised his voice and said, "Be careful. That barrier's generating large amounts of static electricity. It'll hurt if you touch it."

Willow glanced over her shoulder; Buffy's flashlight picked out her features and made them look otherworldly. Her eyes narrowed at him; Shippou flared a bit of demonic power out, just for kicks, and watched her eyes widen. She said tersely -- and perhaps with a bit of warning at him, "I know what I'm doing."

Kagome next to him had caught the flash of youki too; she swatted him with the back of her hand and said, "Don't do that."

"Mmm." Shippou strode over to Willow, ignored the wary look she gave him, and peered past her into that roiling black fog. It stank of decay and decomposition, but wasn't actually toxic. He thanked the gods for small blessings. "I'm voting that we let Inuyasha take care of the barrier."

"How's he going to help?" Willow said, a bit dismissively. "He's not much of a magic user, unless there's something about him my books don't mention."

"Tessaiga," Kagome said, simply. "It can take barriers out."

"That sword," Willow responded, after a moment's silence, and with a bit of sarcasm in her voice, "Is impressive. What can't it do?"

"Plenty. It's a useful tool for Inuyasha, but it's not what makes him who he is these days. It's why he only carries it when he's expecting a fight," Shippou explained, with a shrug. Kagome shot him a look; Shippou wondered if _she _realized that leaving Tessaiga behind was a deliberate choice for Inuyasha, and one not motivated by his desire to blend in among humas. Because, really, putting a glamour on the sword would not have been difficult. They had, a few times, in the past, when it had become necessary -- it was a very simple illusion for Shippou to do.

Once, things had been very different for Inuyasha. Shippou had rather strong memories of an Inuyasha long ago who didn't dare be separated from the blade for fear he'd lose his humanity. Bad memories. Not until he'd actually lost it in a fight and not regained it for years had Inuyasha learned to stand on his own, without it ... and that had been a near disaster. Both Shippou and Amelia had worried he'd lose his soul in an uncontrolled transformation.

He hadn't, though. And eventually he'd learned to control his demon half, with Amelia's help. Inuyasha had proven stronger than anyone had ever guessed -- not even Inuyasha's father, or Inuyasha himself, had thought the hanyou would be able to master his inhuman blood. He had, and when he'd regained Tessaiga, he'd never again worn it unless he expected to be fighting.

Shippou added, "Anyway, if Inuyasha didn't have Tessaiga, he'd come through that barrier using brute force and claws."

"Because of her?" Buffy flicked her flashlight at Kagome.

"Both of us, actually," Kagome said, squinting into the light. "Don't underestimate how Inuyasha feels about Shippou."

Shippou grinned at her, knowing full well it was true. And mutual. Sometimes, Inuyasha left him wondering and second guessing, but ... well, he knew, in the depths of his heart that Inuyasha considered him the only son he'd ever have.

"Miss Summers," a smooth, oddly accented voice said behind Shippou. "May I offer my assistance in the coming fight? Because we will have to fight, I fear."

"Yeah, sure," Buffy said. "Join the party."

"Shippou, this is Kavan. He's Seelie." Kagome said.

Shippou glanced at the man. In the dim light his blond hair shone like a pale halo, and his eyes were weirdly familiar. Shippou couldn't place them. The elf met his gaze and lifted an eyebrow in polite inquiry. "You're short a few tails with that look, m'lad."

Shippou was impressed by that; the man had _power _if he could see through the potent illusions that concealed Shippou's truest form. "I don't need to show off."

"Most Kitsune I've known are much vainer than that," Kavan said, sounding approving.

"I'm old." Shippou brushed his red hair back from his eyes. "I don't need to show off. Most of my people bluster and bluff because there's bigger and nastier things out there that want us for lunch. We've a reputation for being a weak race, and that's at least partly because we do not often survive past our first few centuries." He grinned, suddenly. "It's fun to take the bad guys by surprise, ne? They think I'm a little one-tailed kitsune boy until they find out otherwise."

"I can see the appeal there," Kavan said, with a grin that lit mischief in his eyes.

"If they survive, they rarely pick on kitsune again. Not that there's many of us on this side of the ocean. But ..."

Angel had briefly disappeared into his office; he returned with a sheathed sword, and asked, "Can you handle steel? We noted your sword was cracked earlier."

Kavan grimaced. "Yes. All I've done for the past several weeks is fight, and my blade's in need of repairs ... steel won't kill me, at least not right away. Long unbroken exposure causes severe anemia, and can lead to cancers. Many of our lesser court have significantly more health issues stemming from iron exposure, and other problems with the modern world, though."

He pulled broadsword out from the sheath and inspected it. "Nice. Thank you."

Kavan added, as he put the sword away again. "Exposure to cold iron, and to toxic elements in the atmosphere, are why there are so few Seelie left. And Unseelie, too."

"And possibly youkai," Shippou said. "You'll note that our swords are made from fangs."

"Perhaps." Kavan acknowledged. "I would certainly not turn down a youkai-tooth sword, but there isn't anyone left who can make them."

"Yeah. That's a bit of a problem."

Kavan slung the sword across his back and buckled the harness over his shirt. He was moving very stiffly; Shippou figured he'd been injured recently. "So." Kavan said, "I'm going to assume this barrier extends completely over the building, but do we want to verify that and sweep the building for intruders? And maybe find a more defensible location? You're the boss, but I'm getting creepy-crawly feelings between my shoulderblades not knowing what's going on in the rest of the building."

Buffy nodded agreement. "Yeah, planned on it."

Efficiently, she divided the group up into sets of three and four, each comprised of one 'heavy hitter' plus the new Slayers. Shippou found himself paired with Kagome and Hanako, as well as Andrew -- he supposed that made sense, since Andrew's Japanese, while heavily influenced by the shonen anime the guy loved, was at least understandable. They could all speak Japanese and not have to translate for Hanako.

Though he'd have lumped Kagome in with the other heavy-hitters like Willow and Spike ... but Buffy didn't know either Shippou or Kagome very well. He realized with amusement that Buffy might be considering him an unknown factor and correctly assuming that Kagome, as a rather experienced Slayer, could hold her own against most average threats.

Hanako was still preternaturally calm. _Old soul, _he thought. _And a natural inclination towards competence in the face of danger._

"I'm amazed Inuyasha doesn't have that barrier down yet," Kagome said, "It's not all that powerful."

"He may have met with other trouble," Shippou said, a bit unwillingly. And 'not all that powerful' was relative -- both of them knew Inuyasha could handle it; it was definitely weaker than some of the shield-spells that Naraku had put in their way.

Kagome gave him a dark look. They didn't know what was going on outside that barrier. For all they knew, Inuyasha could be in the midst of a pitched battle. Both of them also knew that.

"It's Inuyasha, Kagome. He'll be fine." Shippou shrugged. "He hasn't survived seven centuries ..."

"Don't say it. Don't jinx him," Kagome said, shortly.

"Here," Buffy handed Kagome a single flashlight. "We don't have many. You take the basement. Andrew knows where the entrances to the storm sewers are. Make sure they're secure. See if you can get past the barrier there while you're at it."

Escaping via the drains would be altogether too easy, Shippou thought. He seriously doubted it would work.

"We'll meet back here in twenty minutes," Buffy said. "Go!"

---------------------

Inuyasha impatiently revved his engine at a stoplight. He _knew _the hotel was around here somewhere. Where the fuck was it, anyway?

Teeth bared, he gunned the engine as soon as the light changed green. Narrowly, he missed the back end of a pickup that was a bit tardy in making a left at the intersection, and then rocketed down the street. The hotel should be right ... there ...!

He blinked, confused. For the fourth time, it seemed as if he'd made a left instead of going straight at that intersection. He _knew _he'd gone straight, but the only way he could have gotten to the corner of Elm and Caballo was to have made a left and then a right. Was he losing his mind?

Fuck. Fuck it all. No. He wasn't losing his mind. If he was prone to actual insanity he'd have gone bugfuck centuries ago. Someone was screwing with the folds of space and time.

He parked crookedly at the curb, snagged Tessaiga up, and launched himself into the night sky. This was a puzzle best solved with some altitude.

There was no hotel.

There was, however, one _very large _traffic jam in the area, with cars behaving markedly erratically. Drivers were flipping "U" turns, weaving through traffic, darting up and down roads, and variously behaving in ways that indicated they were just as confused as he was by some topographical impossibilities.

Grimly, he landed on a rooftop of a nearby skyscraper. He knew _where _the hotel was supposed to be, but he couldn't seem to see it. There wasn't a hole there, or a void. Just an ... absence. His eyes slid over the location like it didn't exist.

"Unseelie work," a low, smooth voice said next to him.

Inuyasha shot sideways, hand landing on the hilt of Tessaiga, lips lifting in a snarl of warning. It was pure reflex; he wasn't thinking, just reacting.

Sesshomaru lifted a cool eyebrow. "Nice to see you're aware of what's sneaking up behind you, little brother."

Inuyasha straightened up, folded his arms, and regarded Sesshomaru with some incredulity. It was his brother, sure, but he'd never seen Sesshomaru in ... civvies ... before. "What happened, decide to go human?"

Sesshomaru snorted. "Don't think for a moment what I chose to wear matters to who I am."

"Feh. That's right, it doesn't change the fact that you're a bastard ..." Inuyasha shook his head. He wasn't actually in a mood to beat up Sesshomaru at the moment unless it turned out that Sesshomaru was behind the problem at the hotel -- which Inuyasha doubted. Not his brother's style; if Sesshomaru had a problem with you, he generally just said so and then killed you.

Impatiently, Inuyasha demanded, "Okay, now that we've got the snarling at each other out of the way, what are _you _doing here?

The other eyebrow rose. Sesshomaru gave his brother a rather startled look; Inuyasha figured that Sesshomaru had expected him to snap and growl a bit longer. Well, the guy _had _brought Kagome back to life, and Inuyasha was grudgingly grateful. And Sesshomaru might actually know something useful right now, too. "And more to the point, do you know where the hotel is?"

Sesshomaru shrugged. In a tone that implied he was speaking to someone who was a bit slow and simple, he said, "It's not there anymore."

"_That's _obvious enough." Inuyasha snapped. "Do you know where it _is_?"

"No." A bland, golden-eyed look.

Inuyasha regarded him in silence for a long moment. While he was indisputably Sesshomaru, he was dressed remarkably humanly. He was wearing jeans, a sweater (with one arm hanging loose and empty), sandals, and he had his hair pulled back with a rubber band. He had Tenseiga in one hand, but no belt to hang the blade's scabbard on.

And his clothes looked a bit rumpled, like he'd just woken up and hastily thrown them on. He was far, far from the dignified daiyoukai lord that Inuyasha normally saw that Inuyasha was, in truth, a little amused. Inuyasha's lips quirked up in a bit of a smirk. "Not in uniform, are we now?"

"No," Sesshomaru said. One lip twisted up in a smile that almost mirrored Inuyasha's. "My robes are at the dry cleaner's."

"Always wondered if you ever let your hair down," Inuyasha snorted. "Figuratively speaking. Shippou and I have a bet on that, you know -- Shippou, it appears, won."

"A bet?"

"That you owned a pair of blue jeans. Shippou said yes. Because I figured you were such a stick in the mud that you wore that damned kimono and fur thing from the time you got up in the morning until the time you went to bed. If you even slept. Which we have another bet on."

Sesshomaru eyed his younger brother with a completely expressionless look. "I hope you didn't bet much money because I do sleep."

"Feh. I bet you did, Shippou bet not."

"Are any _other _biological functions of mine a subject of wagers by you and the kitsune?"

Inuyasha gave him another smirk. This one was downright evil. "You don't want me to answer that question."

"Perhaps I am not that curious. At any rate, when I sensed the presence of Unseelie in this city I concluded that haste was preferable over sending Jaken to retrieve my clothing from the cleaner's, so you will simply have to endure me dressed as this." Sesshomaru indicated his jeans with a contemptuous wave of his hand.

"Why would I care what you wear? Looks more comfortable than that silk crap you dress in all the time, anyway. And you hardly need the armor."

"Mm. Perhaps. It is not how I wish to present myself to the world, however." Sesshomaru's eyes slide over Inuyasha's much more battered blue jeans and his faded t-shirt. The expression on his face wasn't quite contemptuous, but it was close. Inuyasha hadn't failed to notice that Sesshomaru was wearing _designer _blue jeans -- Inuyasha had on a pair of old Wranglers. Sesshomaru said calmly, "Judgments are made of you based on your appearance."

"Yeah. Remind me some day to enlighten you on what people in this day and age thing of men who wear fluffy boas and kimonos," Inuyasha said, then before Sesshomaru could respond to that, he added, "Do you have any idea how deal with this problem? Because Shippou and Kagome were both in that hotel. And I'm out of ideas."

"Yes, I note that your ideas generally do not extend past hitting things, then striking them harder if the first instance of violence did not produce satisfactory results. As there is nothing here to apply brute force to, I would imagine you are a bit frustrated," Sesshomaru observed.

"Oh, fuck you." Inuyasha dropped his hand back to Tessaiga's hilt.

"You realize drawing Tessaiga would prove my point," Sesshomaru said, coolly.

Inuyasha lifted his hand off the sword and presented Sesshomaru with a raised middle digit.

Sesshomaru simply stared at the finger, a smile playing around his mouth.

Inuyasha wiped his hand off on his jeans. "So. I assume you are here to help with the Unseelie?"

"Yes. And as much as it pains me to admit it, this is perhaps an enemy that I cannot handle by myself." Sesshomaru sounded remarkably bland as he spoke. "I do not wish to die, and Federic Torin is more than my match in battle. He is too strong, with too many allies. I was quite impressed that Buffy managed to wound him; she may be mortal, but she is a phenomenal fighter."

"Feh. Slayers."

"Do not discount her, Inuyasha."

"I don't. And I am not surprised by her effectiveness in battle." Inuyasha glanced sideways at Sesshomaru. "You do realize that I've teamed with a Slayer before, on multiple occasions. I know what they're capable of and how they react and think. Not just Kagome, but ... before. In the past."

_And_, Inuyasha thought grimly, _I know how to kill them if I have to. _

"The girl. Sango."

"Yes. And others."

"She lived to be quite old. Most don't," Sesshomaru said, calmly.

"The first time, yes." Inuyasha sighed. "Not after."

"After?" Sesshomaru sounded genuinely curious.

"Sango crosses out path about three or four times a century," Inuyasha said, somewhat unwillingly. His heart clenched at bad memories of the past. "Shippou and I seem fated to encounter her soul over and over again. She is not always a Slayer, but often, she is. Always, she is someone important to the fight we're in. Her soul is repeatedly reborn, forever destined to fight against evil. We don't know why she can't rest."

"This bothers you."

"We see a friend die, again and again, Sesshomaru. It ... hurts." Inuyasha gritted his teeth.

"But she will come back, if what you say is true."

"Feh. And not remember us. And ... it just hurts, okay?" Inuyasha said, defensively. "You wouldn't understand."

Sesshomaru said, unwillingly, "Rin came back. Once. I found her by pure accident. It ... was not the same."

"It never is. You can't go back to what was." Inuyasha grunted. "So. Are we working together? Because much as I think you're a complete bastard, I'm not going to turn down _any _help in saving Kagome and Shippou. Ne?"

"Very well, we'll work together," Sesshomaru said, sounding impatient.

"Great. It'll be just like old times." Inuyasha snorted. "Let's try the sewers. Maybe we can find a way to the hotel that way."

"That's the best idea you can come up with?" Sesshomaru sighed. Clearly, he didn't have a better one.

"Yeah. Stinks, doesn't it?" Inuyasha said, with a smirk for Sesshomaru's benefit.

"Very funny, little brother."

"Hey, at least you don't have to dry-clean jeans."


	7. Chapter 7

Kagome held her flashlight high in the air, shining it down the dark stairwell to the basement. The flashlight beam was weak, yellow, and flickering -- and the best they had. She couldn't make much out.

"Shippou, do you sense anything down there?"

The kitsune was visibly nervous; though he wasn't the child she remembered from centuries ago, and though he was a formidable fighter now in his own right, for a moment, when she flicked the dim light in his direction, the resemblance to that small boy was painfully obvious. He stood nervously on the top step, nostrils flared, red pony-tail trailing halfway down his back, tail twitching and fists balled.

"Nuh-uh," he said, finally. He glanced from her to Hanako and back. Hanako had a death grip on one very large axe. "You?"

"Nothing but vile evil and a few ghosts. Let's go." She felt about as nervous as Shippou looked. The whole go-into-the-basement-and-see-what's-there idea had her wigged; it felt like the plot of a bad horror movie. Except with two slayers, one full demon, and one ... Andrew ... they ought to be able to deal with anything short of an actual apocalypse.

Buffy had loaned her a crossbow and several quarrels; the Slayer had also had a long bow, but Kagome had not been happy with the condition of the bowstring on it, and there hadn't been any replacements. So she'd simply filled her pockets with stakes and taken the crossbow -- the crossbow had some power behind it, but the stakes would actually be more efficient in a close fight.

She could do things as a miko with stakes that no ordinary Slayer was capable of. Like charging them with purifying power and _throwing_ them, not just using them as pointy objects to stab with. The crossbow, however, would come in handy if she needed some penetrating power.

"Lemme take the lead," she slipped past Shippou.

"Inuyasha is gonna kill me if anything happens to you," Shippou worried, not entirely happy with her leading.

"Relax. If anything takes me out," she cast a grin over her shoulder at him, "You'll have bigger and more immediate problems to worry about than Inuyasha."

"Gee, that's so reassuring!" He snapped his fingers, summoning foxfire to them. The foxfire cast a brighter light than the flashlight did, and she snapped it off. Besides making a handy torch, his foxfire was also a pretty effective weapon. She could feel the heat of it radiating off his hands.

Hanako, behind Shippou, suggested, "If we do get attacked, Shippou, I'll cover your back. Andrew, you watch Kagome's. They're our two strongest fighters; I think we should let them lead the fight and we'll make sure nothing surprises them from behind."

"R-right," Andrew agreed.

"And don't piss your pants, little boy," Shippou muttered under his breath, too low for Andrew to hear -- but since he was only a stride behind her, Kagome heard him just fine.

"Shippou!" She stopped, turned, and shot him a glare. "Be nice. I swear, Inuyasha's been a horrible influence on you."

"Feh. Why would I want to be anything like _that _asshole?" Shippou managed to mimic Inuyasha's crankiest tone of voice perfectly, to Kagome's amusement.

She chuckled at that, though Hanako said in confusion, "Are you and Inuyasha not friends?"

"They're like family," Kagome said, before Shippou could answer. "Complete with nice family spats. Shippou, y'know, I might be a good enough miko to make you a fancy necklace all your own now ..."

Shippou chuckled, and a bit of the tension left his wiry body. "I'd like to see you get it on me!"

She grinned.

They reached the bottom of the stairs. Shippou held his flame-covered hands up, standing on his toes so he could cast the light over Kagome's head -- in his native form, he was a head shorter than she was. She wasn't surprised, really, that he'd ended up very small, given that he'd been tiny enough to ride on her shoulder when he was the demonic equivalent of a preschooler.

The exercise-equipment filled gym in the basement was empty, albeit filled with spooky shadows. "I don't like it down here," Shippou said.

Kagome kept close to the wall as she led the way across the exercise room. The room had once housed a restaurant; Buffy had mentioned that the kitchen was still there, and sure enough, she pushed open a swinging door and that was the next room.

It looked like they'd been fixing the kitchens up -- there were signs of recent construction here. Shippou's foxfire revealed a new counter, and a new stove, and a walk-in fridge with the door pulled off the hinges and the guts scattered across the floor in bits and pieces. Given that Buffy planned to open a Slayer school in Angel's hotel, fixing up the kitchen definitely made sense.

Black miasma spilled across the floor. Shippou sniffed delicately and said nothing, so Kagome assumed it wasn't toxic. The source was a door that was propped open -- Shippou stuck his head through, then said, "Loading dock. The barrier's out there too, we can't get out that way."

He shut and locked the door.

The access to the storm drains was in the sub basement; there was a hatch in a storage room beyond the kitchen that led down to it. Shippou caught Kagome up bridal-style; he was far, far stronger than he looked. She'd seen him spar with Inuyasha a few times, and he could flatten Inuyasha in a fair fight -- though practice fights with Inuyasha were rarely fair, and her hanyou won more often than not. Shippou was just naturally nicer than Inuyasha. "We'll guard the ladder while you two climb down," Shippou suggested.

He jumped down through the hatch. The sub basement had a low ceiling, crumbling brick walls, a rocky floor, and was ten times spookier than the basement itself.

"I don't like the feel down here ..." Shippou said. His fox-fire seemed dimmer, casting less light. Kagome wasn't sure if that was a genuine issue, or if it was just her imagination.

She extended her senses, trying to pick up anything out of the ordinary. The hair on the back of her neck was trying to stand on end, but she couldn't pick up anything actually evil -- no youkai, no spirits, no nasty magic. Just a creepy sub basement.

"The trap door is over here," Andrew, who'd lived here for months, knew where it was. He led the way past support pillars and around silent, hulking, machinery -- air handlers, an old boiler that looked like hadn't been fired up in years, and mechanical bits that Kagome couldn't name. There were also piles of rubble, including a fair amount of stored stuff that looked to have come from the defunct restaurant -- there were booths, tables, boxes of cutlery and plates, equipment, a battered stage, a karaoke machine.

Shippou lifted up the trap door, and miasma boiled out. "Wait here," he said, "I'll check it out."

He dropped down into the darkness. The black fog instantly swallowed his witchlight, and they found themselves standing in utter darkness. Andrew whimpered in English, "It's dark."

"Spooky," Hanako said, in Japanese. "Kagome, is that flashlight working?"

Kagome snapped it on, then had to shake it hard to make it light. "It's about out of juice."

She handed it to Hanako, then pulled one of the stakes out of her pocket. She concentrated on it, imbuing it with purifying energy. It glowed pink, casting more light than the hopeless flashlight.

"Ohohooo!" Shippou wailed in alarm. "Trouuuuble!"

Ah, she'd been expecting that, sooner or later. Shippou yelped, and Kagome started forward, intending to go in after him. She couldn't let Shippou fight a battle alone!

But he burst back out the trap door with one very large tentacle in hot pursuit. Andrew screamed. Hanako uttered a startled oath and swung at the tentacle with her axe -- the tentacle recoiled. Kagome threw the stake at it as it retreated; there was a small explosion and a twitching tip was left behind.

Andrew slammed the trap door shut, then jumped on top of it. Something smacked it from underneath. "Let's _not_ try to get out that way, okay?"

Shippou and Kagome exchanged a look. Kagome said wryly, "No argument there. I have _nightmares_ about tentacles."

"Yeah." Shippou agreed. He scratched his head and stared at the tentacle tip at his feet. "Y'know, Kagome, I turned five hundred and fifty last summer. But I'm still a screaming little boy when something with tentacles comes after me."

"Yeah, you screamed, all right." She reached out and ruffled his red hair. He ducked away.

"You screamed too!" Shippou protested.

"That wasn't me. That was Andrew." Kagome eyed the trap door uneasily. Andrew had latched it shut, but she though that whatever owned the tentacle might be able to break through. They needed to put some sort of barrier up. And she wasn't good at barriers at all -- not making them or breaking them.

Andrew pulled a bit of chalk out of his pocket and sketched a quick rune on the trap door. He muttered something over it, then said hesitantly, "I think that'll hold for a little bit. We'll get Willow to put up something better."

"You're a magic user?" Hanako said, surprised. Kagome wasn't; Andrew's knowledge of the arcane had been too ... thorough ... to be entirely from book learning.

"I dabble," Andrew said -- somewhat modestly, for him, Kagome thought.

"Let's get out of here. I don't think we're going to find anything else down here, and I'll be happier when we've joined back with the others," Kagome headed for the ladder up at fast walk. Her skin was crawling.

She hadn't been able to sense the evil earlier. But it was there now, looming, all around the hotel. Waiting. Watching. Building.


	8. Chapter 8

"I really hate things with tentacles," Inuyasha eyed the storm drain, and its inhabitant, warily. "What is that, a kraken?"

Sesshomaru dropped to one knee and peered into the opening; they'd pried up a metal grate -- in the void below, black mist billowed and, occasionally, tentacles writhed into view.

"Hnnh." Sesshomaru's response indicated disgust more than a negative or affirmative response to Inuyasha's speculation.

"A very angry one, I'm guessing." Lacking an answer from his brother, Inuyasha replied to his own question. "It stinks of the sea; I'm betting it's none too happy to be in the sewer." He pulled Tessaiga -- deliberately not transforming it, because a beat up sword was arguably less obvious arm a bright and shiny one that was the size of a car bumper -- and reached down into the mist. His reach was just long enough that he was able to poke one of the tentacles with the tip of sword. The tentacle recoiled. A painfully loud screech made him pin his ears flat.

"And the point of that was?" Sesshomaru asked, acerbically. He stood back up.

Inuyasha squatted on his heels and shrugged. "I can smell Shippou. There is a connection between here and the hotel."

"Hnnh." Sesshomaru repeated.

"You think you could ..." Inuyasha made a clawing gesture with his hand.

"My poison claws would not be sufficient to incapacitate a demon of this size." Sesshomaru was silent, and perfectly still, for a moment. "Our best option may involve brute force."

"Well, I can do that," Inuyasha shrugged. Without further discussion he dropped through the opening, transformed Tessaiga, and started chopping at the tentacles. The kraken screamed in agony and rage and lashed out, flinging Inuyasha against the damp, slimy concrete walls of the drain with bruising force.

He recovered and ruthlessly hacked at the twitching, sucker-covered appendages, chopping bits and pieces off. The bigger sections twitched and thrashed. Inuyasha fought on, swearing under his breath, as he was covered in gore and slime and nasty foul-smelling water.

Five minutes later, the kraken was in pieces. "There." Inuyasha said, leaning on Tessaiga and catching his breath. "I thought that was going to be hard." He glanced up at Sesshomaru, who fastidiously picked his way around a quivering tentacle tip, walked past Inuyasha, and stopped at the base of a ladder leading up to a trap door. "You know, asshole, you could have helped."

"Why?"

Inuyasha bit back several profane responses to that. He settled on a reasonably polite, "Because I thought we were working together."

"Hnnnh." Sesshomaru gestured at the ladder. "After you, then."

Inuyasha gave Sesshomaru a suspicious look, then scrambled up to the trap door. He put a hand on it, intending to shove it open by pure force of effort. Power flared, hot and painful, like a ferocious electric shock. His last thought was that Sesshomaru had set him up -- again.

Then his brother's arms caught him, and then oblivion crashed over him.

-------------

"Willow, any chance you could pop out of here and get help from the other Slayers?" Angel asked. He was seated behind his desk; a single candle flickering in front of him cast what Xander thought were positively satanic shadows from below his strong features.

"Uh-uh. I can't teleport out," Willow shook her head, in response to Angel's question. In the dim light, the motion was barely visible. "The spell seems to be setting up too much interference. I've tried."

"Pretty nice show of fireworks when she did, too," Xander straddled a chair backwards in Angel's office. He was tired and he'd be a fool if he wasn't wigged by the fact that they were trapped and, likely, facing an attack from bad guys sooner or later. The Scoobies had gathered here -- himself and Willow, Dawn, Andrew, Faith, Buffy. Plus, for no reason that Xander could discern given this was a Scoobie meeting, Kagome and Shippou.

Everyone else -- young Slayers and one elf -- were out in the lobby. Buffy had put them to work sharpening weapons. It kept them busy and it kept weapons in their hands if they were attacked.

"How's the air holding up in here?" Kagome asked -- directing the question at Shippou.

The fox demon sniffed the air. "We're getting air from somewhere, but it doesn't smell like LA."

Well, Xander allowed charitably, the reason that the two were included in the meeting was that Buffy had asked them to come.

Buffy, apparently, was including Kagome on her short list of Really Competent People when it came to dealing with trouble. Xander wasn't sure what precisely Kagome had done to earn that distinction.

Well, he thought, the Naraku dude sounded like he'd been a major-league Big Bad and Kagome had helped kill him before she was Chosen. So maybe she had earned some respect.

Still.

And her kill rate for vampires and assorted other nasties was phenomenal. Though she'd declined assistance from Slayer Central they'd kept track of her and she was very good.

Still.

And she was a witch. On top of being a Slayer.

Xander decided Buffy was probably right for including Kagome in this discussion. He didn't like it, but it was the right decision. Kagome had the street cred.

And where Kagome went, Shippou was going to follow. That much was obvious by the protective way the kitsune hovered close to her. He was a lot politer than Inuyasha but it was clear that Shippou was no less worried about her safety.

"Inuyasha will get us out," Kagome was saying with confidence. "Tessaiga should be able to cut through that barrier without a problem."

"If he was going to rescue us," Willow pointed out, "Wouldn't he have done so already?"

Shippou responded, "He might have run into trouble that's slowing him down."

Buffy snorted. "I'd hate to see what sort of trouble could delay Inuyasha from rescuing Kagome ..."

"... I'd hate to _be _that trouble ..." Shippou interjected, sotto voice.

"Heh," Buffy agreed. "I have to give him props for being loyal to his women. -- Aaaaanyway, Spike, when you swept the top floor, were you able to get out onto the roof?"

"No." Spike was leaning against the wall, arms folded. "As best I could tell, The barrier's only a few inches above the top of the building."

"Okay. I'm _not _going to assume that Rover's going to come to the rescue," Buffy nodded to the younger slayer, "Sorry, Kagome, but we don't know what's going on out there. -- Suggestions? I'm all out of ideas here, guys."

"Kill Sir Squid," Willow suggested, pointing down with a finger. "See if we can get out that way."

"I _hate_ tentacles," Shippou stated. "I positively loath them. They give me the wiggins. Anyone have any other ideas?"

"He's joking," Kagome reached out and gave Shippou a shove. Xander watched that casual byplay with a raised eyebrow. He hadn't seen many demons and humans with that sort of a relationship -- it was a purely platonic friendship, but they were obviously quite comfortable with each other.

"I am not! I can trace my tentacle-phobia to early childhood trauma," Shippou replied, sniffing. "I am kidding about the better idea bit, however, because I don't see any other option than to try to escape through the sewers."

"That'll be bloody fun," Spike said, rolling his eyes.

"You have a very bizarre idea of 'fun'," Xander informed him.

------------------

He hurt.

Inuyasha woke to the realization that he was in pain, and he was being carried slung over somebody's bony shoulder. A clawed hand grasped his thigh, holding him in place.. When he opened his eyes the light flickering through a storm grate showed a knee-length fall of white hair down a man's back.

"Sesshomaru," he was shocked at how weak he sounded.

"Hnnh."

"Put me down."

"You are not able to walk." Sesshomaru's voice was cold and emotionless even for him. He continued down the storm drain.

"What ... what happened?"

"The trap door was warded. You have burned yourself badly." Sesshomaru's words prompted Inuyasha to look at down. He saw bone visible through tears in the ragged, oozing, _cooked_ flesh on his right palm.

His hand curiously, didn't hurt. His arm was on fire, however, from the middle of the forearm to the shoulder.

He lost track of time. He might have screamed. When awareness next came, he was seated against a wall and Sesshomaru was fighting tentacles with his claws. That made him think of Naraku, and he said, "Come back from the dead, did you? We'll slay you again, you bastard."

Then he remembered this wasn't Naraku, it was just a random monster, and he felt embarrassed. He shook his head in an attempt to clear the fog out; the flare of pain from his arm when this motion jostled his wrist brought him to sudden and sharp awareness.

Sesshomaru said, in a conversational tone, as he finished off the attacking monster creature, "Inuyasha, are you aware that if you cut a starfish in pieces, each section becomes a new starfish?"

"Nggg." His throat was dry and there was a very foul taste in it.

"The same applies to kraken."

"Fuck. You ... learn ... something new ... every day."

Sesshomaru finished slaying the kraken -- presumably spawned from a piece of the original kraken -- then cut a hole to hell with Tenseiga and started tossing bits of sliced and diced squid through it. Inuyasha watched this for a moment then forced himself to his feet. He couldn't close his right hand. He awkwardly grasped Tessaiga's hilt with his left.

"You are not able to fight," Sesshomaru said, glancing back.

"You _knew_ that trap door was warded," Inuyasha snapped at him, angry. And he could damn well fight, he thought, if Kagome needed rescuing. Anyway, he was rapidly feeling stronger; that was from adrenalin, probably. This fight was far from over. He could collapse later, after everything was over ... Hopefully, that collapse would be into Kagome's arms after he rescued her for the umpteenth time in their lives.

The thought of being held by Kagome as he slid into peaceful oblivion was pleasant. She always smelled so good, and made him feel so safe when she held him close.

A flicker of something crossed Sesshomaru's face. It wasn't deceit, but Inuyasha couldn't quite identify the emotion. "I did not suspect a ward of such power, and I did expect that you would be able to break the ward with Tessaiga. You would have prevented a great deal of pain if you had exercised more caution. Also, Kagome is far more likely to try to kill _me _than _you_. I merely did not wish to be the first person to emerge at the top of the ladder."

It was a bit of a long-winded explanation for Sesshomaru. Peevishly, Inuyasha said, "You still could have said something about trap door being warded."

"I will note, for future reference, that you lack common intelligence," Sesshomaru replied.

"Why the hell did you even bother to carry me away?" Inuyasha stared at his right hand for a moment longer. It was disgusting, and even seeing it turned his stomach -- if he'd pressed his hand to a barbeque grill for several minutes, he might have achieved a similar effect. He would heal, eventually. In the near term, however, he was crippled in a fight.

"I am not so much a fool as to waste an ally in the coming battles with the Unseelie over personal feelings." Sesshomaru's reply was short and to the point.

"Gee, and here I thought you might actually have feelings of brotherly love," Inuyasha yanked his shirt over his head then wrapped the cotton around his charred, oozing hand. His hand hurt, a bit, with a sense of dull aching pressure, but not nearly so much as he would have expected. His arm had lesser burns to the shoulder, however. _Those_ were painful.

He couldn't get the t-shirt to stay. He was right-handed and it was just too awkward. He swore at it.

Sesshomaru stepped forward, suddenly, and caught Inuyasha's left wrist. "Allow me."

Inuyasha nearly bit him. He did snarl in response to the touch. "What the fuck do you think you're doing!"

"Bandaging that hand. If you will allow me to assist you."

"Why?"

Sesshomaru's eyes flicked up to Inuyasha's face. His face was impassive. "Seven centuries and you still have not figured out my motivations towards you, little brother. You are an idiot."

"What do you mean?" Inuyasha said, very stiffly. "You've made it clear to me that you resent the fact that I even exist. You've tried to kill me -- how many times? You drove me from Japan, from my _home_, because you could not bear the 'taint' of Amelia on Japan's soil."

"There is much you have yet to figure out, Inuyasha," Sesshomaru said, quietly. Too quietly, really, and when Inuyasha looked up from his hand, Sesshomaru's amber eyes -- the same amber as Inuyasha's own -- searched his face. "I do not hate you."

"Coulda fooled me." Inuyasha paused a beat. "What, do you think I'm not _worthy _enough to even hate? I can kick your ass if I wanted to."

Sesshomaru's response was firm. "I do not hate you because there is no need. Give me your hand."

Reluctantly -- very reluctantly -- Inuyasha held it out. It would take two hands to properly bandage his burns.

Belatedly, he remembered that Sesshomaru only had one arm himself. One sleeve of his t-shirt hung empty. It was easy to forget that; Sesshomaru was quite deft with his remaining hand. Inuyasha himself had removed that arm, many centuries before -- Sesshomaru had it coming, too, Inuyasha thought, with savage pride at that long ago fight.

His brother unwrapped the t-shirt, gripped it in his teeth, and used his claws to shred it into long strips. "Put your finger there," Sesshomaru said, firmly, holding the end of one of the strips to Inuyasha's wrist.

Neatly, with Inuyasha's assistance, he bound his hand up. Enough t-shirt material was left over so that Sesshomaru could knot it together into a rope; he reached up, dropped it around Inuyasha's neck, and said, "Keep that hand in a sling. Don't use it, or it will take much longer to heal."

"Yes, _brother_," Inuyasha said, voice mocking. "I'm so glad you care."

"Hnnh. If you are sufficiently recovered I believe our best course of action is to attempt to return to the trap door. It will be a bit of a fight, as there are many more monsters in our way, now. Can you wield Tessaiga in your left hand?"

"Yeah. I can fight."

"Let us go, then. This Sesshomaru grows tired of the atmosphere in this sewer."

"Stinks down here," Inuyasha agreed, wrinkling his nose. On that point, he certainly agreed with his brother.


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Notes: This is not a new chapter; it's been on Twisting the Hellmouth for quite awhile. However, I realized it wasn't here and thought I'd fix that. I _will _be working on this story and finishing it eventually -- it's not abandoned. My Swordsman 'verse stories just had more plot bunnies in the last several months.

------------------

Inuyasha couldn't figure Sesshoumaru out. Something was motivating his brother; he couldn't name it, but it certainly wasn't brotherly love.

"This is disgusting," Inuyasha said, flicking kraken guts from his fingers. He held Tessaiga in his good hand -- he didn't want to put the sword back in its sheath; it was fouled with gore and he didn't have anything to clean it with.

"Do you think you can break the barrier?" Sesshoumaru asked, pointedly, "Before something else comes along?"

Inuyasha stared up at the warded trap door. He had no idea how he was going to climb the ladder -- while he could, and frequently did, ignore large amounts of pain during fights, his hand literally wasn't working. Until the tendons and muscles regenerated, he couldn't grasp anything with it.

A shout, behind them. And running footsteps.

He turned in time to see swarms of armored elves, moving entirely too fast, appear around a bend in the storm drain. Inuyasha swore and Tessaiga flared to life in his hand. He had just gone from trying to figure out how to break into the hotel to resolving to defend it. Kagome was above him, and he had _no _doubt that these elves would try to break through the doorway.

He crouched, lunged ... and the lead elf whipped a bow up and fired off an arrow. The arrow crackled with energy and slammed right through Tessaiga's defenses and into his shoulder. And oblivion consumed him.

Again.

His last conscious awareness was of Sesshoumaru standing over him, bleeding from wounds of his own.

---------------

There was noise coming from below the trap door. Shippou sat on his haunches, regarding the seals thoughtfully. "Somebody's having a fight down there."

They could hear steel ringing on steel, and people shouting in an alien tongue. Kagome glanced from Shippou to Buffy to the door, then back to Shippou. It sounded like trouble, and she had a sinking feeling her hanyou was probably in the middle of it.

"That's Unseelie," Kavan said, head tilted to one side. Apparently, he recognized the language.

"If somebody's fighting the Unseelie ..." Kagome said.

"... Likely, it's Inuyasha." Buffy finished Kagome's thought. "Andrew, open that trap door."

"But ..." Xander started to protest.

"If he's down there, he's defending us." Buffy glared at him. "Andrew do it."

Andrew broke the chalked seals on the door with a swipe of his hand, wiping them away. Then he yanked the door open, as the assorted Slayers, demon and vampires waited tensely around him. He ducked back with a squeak -- and none too soon.

There was a flurry of motion. Impossibly fast, somebody shot through trap door. "Miko," a cool voice said, before the figure was even done moving, "I would suggest re-sealing that doorway."

The figure resolved into --- first she thought it was Inuyasha, in the dim light, because she saw white hair and blue jeans. Then she realized, when the figure stopped moving and dropped a body at his feet, that he was too tall, too thin, and far too collected to be her boyfriend. It took her a moment longer to recognize him, however, because she'd never seen Sesshoumaru quite that ... messy ... before. He was covered in nasty gore.

"Seal the door!" she said, in a sudden panic. If there was something down there bad enough to make Sesshoumaru beat a retreat, she did _not _want to face it.

"Do it!" Buffy said, kicking the trap door shut on the head of an armored figure. There was a crash as whatever had been following Sesshoumaru up the ladder fell back down. Andrew hastily started drawing chalk runes on the door again ... and they promptly flared to vicious light as whatever was down there tried to break through.

There were howls of pain.

Willow said, "Niiice, Andrew."

"Sesshoumaru," Kagome said, by way of greeting.

"Miko." His greeting was cool; she had no idea how to read him -- if he even could be read. Was he a threat, or not?

She glanced at the body at his feet -- and realized, with a stomach-twisting lurch of dismay, that it was Inuyasha. Inuyasha had an arrow stuck in his shoulder, and his hair was black as midnight. He was naked to the waist, and blood and grime and gore streaked his body.

"What happened?" She demanded, of Sesshoumaru.

"Did you know elves can exorcise demons?" Sesshoumaru said. He didn't move to bend over Inuyasha or show any real concern.

Kagome crouched next to him. Her heart was in her throat. Was he even breathing?

He groaned. Encouraged, she babbled, "Inuyasha. Inuyasha, c'mon dog-boy, talk to me ..."

He was breathing somewhat shallowly. Slowly, he roused. "... Kag ... ome?"

"Yeah. It's me. Damnit."

"You're okay," he tried to sit up. This involved pushing himself up with right hand, which was bandaged with the remnants of his t-shirt. He promptly went pale and slumped back. The arrow was sticking out of his left shoulder; she could tell his collarbone had been shattered simply by the way his arm was dangling.

"Let's get him upstairs," Shippou said. He scooped Inuyasha up, careful of the arrow. "Damnit. I think he's bad hurt, Kagome."

--------------

His first awareness was pain; this was followed by the realization that Kagome's scent was strong in his nostrils. Inuyasha opened his eyes to darkness, and shifted a bit, and the pain in his shoulder and hand flared to real agony. He groaned.

"Inuyasha," Kagome's voice was muffled. Her voice made him realize that he was being held close by the woman he loved most in all the world -- she was spooned up against him from behind, and she had one arm around his middle. Fingers stroked his hair -- touched his ears -- paused. "You're back to yourself. Thank god."

"What ... where am I?"

"You got purified." She murmured. "Thank the gods it was temporary. And it's late. You've been unconscious for several hours."

He felt her raise herself up onto one elbow; she fumbled with her watch, and the illuminated dial flared to life. She murmured, "It's three AM."

"Where ..." His voice was harsh in his throat. Dimly now, he remembered screaming when they'd washed and bandaged his hand, but he guessed he'd been pretty out of it for several hours.

He was in a bed. He could smell clean sheets, and a somewhat musty mattress beneath them. Distantly, he also detected the reeking stink of menthol. When he shifted his weight again, the bed creaked a bit. He repeated, "Where ... " realization dawned, "... hotel room?"

"Mmm. On the second floor. This is actually Buffy's room; we're sleeping in shifts. Everybody else is crashing in one room together, but I didn't quite trust them with you out of commission. Figured it was best if we had our own room." Her explanation sounded somewhat sleepy, but was coherent.

Smart, he thought. He had been very vulnerable while injured and in his human form. He suspected it was the transformation back that had roused him. Kagome had kept him safe ... like she always did. She had his back, just as he had hers.

"How do you feel?" She sounded concerned.

"I hurt," he confessed, something he wouldn't have admitted to her even as recently as a few months ago. But it was very true; his arm was on fire and his shoulder sent stabbing pains through his chest and back with every breath

"Figured you might." She sat up. He heard a pill bottle rattle and the plastic crackle of a bottle of water being opened.

"No pills." He didn't want to be muzzy-headed if trouble happened.

"It's ibuprofen, baka." She stroked his hair with her hand, then pressed a couple of pills between his lips. Her fingers _reeked _of menthol -- he wondered what that was from. He hated that stink; he couldn't smell anything else over it, and it clung to everything, permanently. She'd spilled a bottle of liniment in the bathroom once and he'd finally replaced the bathroom floor tiles to get rid of the stench. And he had banned menthol-scented liniment from the house forever by dictatorial decree.

She pressed the bottle of water to his lips -- he held his breath, not liking her stinking fingers near his nose. But when she persisted, he drained it in a few gulps, realizing as he did so that he was very thirsty.

After a moment she said, "Your arm is really badly burnt."

"I know that," he growled.

"And you're cranky, which tells me you're mending." She stood up and he heard her walking around the pitch black room. A flashlight flared to life after a second; she had left it on a bedside table on his side of the bed. She pulled the curtain back and peered through the glass -- he could see nothing out there, and apparently, neither could she.

The fact that there was only a thin layer of glass between him and the miasmic nastiness outside wigged him seriously. He started to sit up.

"Willow put wards on the window. I was just checking to see if they were still in place." She flicked the flashlight over runes painted on the glass. "Lay back down, Inuyasha. There's nothing to do for now, and you might as well get some sleep while you can. You're still mending. You can't even wield Tessaiga in the condition you're in. That arrow hit and broke your collarbone on your left arm and I doubt you could grip the sword with your right."

"Then come to bed with me?" He tried not to sound pitiful, or begging, but he really did want her to crawl under the covers with him and hold him close. He was weak, he was vulnerable ... and Kagome's arms around him would be very welcome indeed. And he'd learned a long time ago that she wouldn't mock him or tease him for the weakness inherent in asking for comfort. Indeed, she encouraged it.

She was right about holding Tessaiga. He'd be useless in a fight right now. He was as weak as a newborn kitten, and didn't have the use of either arm.

She returned to the bed, and slid under the covers with him. She moved his hair aside so she wouldn't lay on it, and curled close to him. He could feel the rough fabric of her jeans against the small of his back, and the press of her breasts against his shoulders. The contact made his injured shoulder twinge but he wasn't about to complain.

She snapped the flashlight off and wrapped an arm around his chest. The menthol on her fingers made him wrinkle his nose, but being held felt too good to pull away. And he was too sleepy to care, all at once. "Willow's guarding the storm sewer entrance," she murmured.

He was suddenly swallowed up by vertigo as the world began to spin around him.

"When you're better -- at least once your collarbone knits -- we want you to try to break through the barrier with Tessaiga." Her right hand reached up and stroked between his ears, then tugged gently at one.

He was on a damned rollercoaster. Every time he moved his head, the world seemed to flip over. He wasn't sure which was up and which was down. It made his stomach roll.

"Bitch," he said, suddenly, realizing _why _her fingers had smelled of menthol. "You devious _bitch_."

"You need to _sleep_," she said, hugging him with the arm that was around him. "You're hurt too bad to fight, Inuyasha. Trust me to keep watch over you. When you wake up you'll be in a lot better shape to deal with things. Even you can only do so much."

With his nose, he would have smelled the codeine in the pills she'd pressed on him, unless it was masked by a much stronger odor. Kagome had known that. She had completely lied to him about what the pills were. The problem was, "I _hate _codeine."

The world was spinning faster now. He couldn't tell up from down. He hoped he wasn't going to be sick; he'd had codeine laced pain pills forced on him before, a few times, and the results had always been less than satisfactory. His human half was enough to make him vulnerable to the narcotic, but it had the very undesirable side effect of vicious vertigo. "Bitch ..." he murmured.

"Go to sleep," she said, "I'm right here and I'll stay awake and watch over you. Okay? I'll wake you up if anything happens."

He wanted to curse her out more, but between his injuries and the medication his awareness was fading rapidly. His last conscious thought was that he was _pissed _at her, and he was going to make her _pay when he woke up, even if she sat him into oblivion. _

_The fact that she was holding him close and watching over him was still comforting, though, even if he was seriously furious. _


	10. Chapter 10

Shippou's foxfire cast sepulchral shadows across Kagome's face. The energy swirled around his hands, lighting the lobby with an uneven, flickering green light. The air smelled faintly of ozone from the magical fire; Buffy had overheard Shippou mutter something about the foxfire keeping the corrupted scent of the miasma at bay.

Kagome sat hunched on a chair in the lobby, keeping watch on the downstairs lobby entrance. Her posture was exhausted, and she cradled a mug of hot coffee in her hands as if she was cold as well as tired. Shippou had brewed the coffee, using his foxfire to heat the water. It was cowboy coffee, with the grounds dumped into the water, but it was good enough if you were desperate for caffeine. Buffy was on her fifth cup, herself.

"You two doing okay?" Buffy asked, from the stairs behind them.

Both of them looked back at her -- the kitsune was seated cross-legged at Kagome's feet, just a couple inches from her knees.

"Inuyasha's still out of it." Kagome shook her head. "He won't be able to wield Tessaiga for quite awhile."

"Shock." Shippou said. "It takes a lot to put Inuyasha for the count, but that ward your warlock put on the doorway more than did the job. He's powerful."

"Who, Andrew?" Buffy supposed he was. She wrinkled her nose. "He's Andrew."

It didn't escape her that neither of them had answered the question with a response about their own health. Instead. they'd automatically answered with a report on their fallen friend's welfare. She'd been leading people long enough to recognize that meant the three of them were a very tight group. Scratch one, and the other two would react like it was their own blood that was being shed.

She had assumed that Kagome and Inuyasha had that sort of relationship. Apparently, Shippou was more than just a mere "friend" -- he was something like kin.

Buffy repeated, "How are _you _doing?"

Kagome shrugged. "We'll be okay."

Darkly, Shippou added, "Unless we get killed in the next five minutes or something. You know the bad guys have to have some sort of evil plan here that likely involves lots of evil minions. With sharp, pointy objects and possibly nasty spells. And tentacles. There will be more tentacles. I just know it."

"They could just be planning on letting us starve to death." Kagome sipped her coffee.

"You two are pretty calm." Buffy was not surprised by this, actually. They'd already established that Kagome knew her business.

"Been there, done that." It was Shippou's turn to shrug. "More or less."

"Same old same old." Kagome agreed. "I agree with Shippou, however. I could do without the tentacles."

"What's with you and tentacles?" Buffy wrinkled her nose. "Other than the obvious eww factor."

"We're ..." Shippou started.

"... Japanese," Kagome finished. They looked at each other and Kagome giggled. The giggle made her sound years younger than her actual age of twenty. She added, "More seriously, we fought a bad guy with a whole lot of 'eww factor' and way too many tentacles. I've not liked ikayaki since."

Buffy had no clue what she was talking about, but Shippou apparently found it funny, because he laughed. "Me, I've found it curiously satisfying to eat octopus ever since."

"Ewww!" Buffy made a face. "Again with the tentacles."

Kagome grinned behind her hand and Shippou smirked.

"Hey. You better not be laughing about me." That was Inuyasha, and despite their prediction that he had a lot of healing left to do, he was on his feet and descending the stairs. Buffy turned to regard him warily, and then with an inevitable double-take of, _Wow, uber-hot demon guy_.

Because he was. He was wearing only the remains of his jeans, now cut off at the knee, and a sling for his arm, and his sword on his belt, with his ass-length white hair swinging long and loose, and a dark glower on his face. The guy had a perfect six-pack and pecs, and he moved with a lean, predatory, powerful grace that promised all sorts of deadly speed even when he was just descending stairs. If he wasn't totally taken, and totally an asshole, and responsible for the deaths of nine Slayers, and if she wasn't totally taken as well, she might find him damn interesting.

Oh, hell. Who was she fooling? Inuyasha was all sorts of _Yum_, particularly when he had that dark, pissed look on his face. The dog ears and the amber of his eyes and his wicked claws only added to the sense of exotic, and thereby to his sex appeal. And he damn well knew it.

He looked at her. And _smirked_. And she remembered that he had a "nearly psychic" sense of smell and could probably pick up her surging hormones at fifty feet away. _Dog demon, _and all that implied.

She flushed, knowing he knew how she'd reacted to his appearance. And worse, he was simply amused. She prayed he wouldn't say anything; Slayers, as a rule, had jealous streaks -- it was all part of living hard, fast, and intensely -- and she didn't need trouble with Kagome.

And his amusement at her expense was just plain irritating. She was 100 sure that her gut-level reaction of interest was not reciprocated; the man had eyes only for his fiancé.

After favoring her with one lifted eyebrow that said, _Yes, I know I'm hot, _he sauntered past and sat down at Kagome's feet, beside the kitsune. And then he said conversationally, to Kagome, "I'm going to make you pay for that stunt with the codeine."

Kagome ruffled his ears. He ducked his head away from her hands in irritation, and sulked wordlessly.

She leaned over and caught his chin in her fingers and tipped his head up to look at her, when his impulse was clearly to glower a hole in the floor. And then she kissed him on the forehead. She said something in snarky-sounding Japanese that made Inuyasha blush and mumble and completely loose his angry, sexy, hot look, and Shippou howl with laughter.

Shippou translated, for Buffy's benefit, "She said he can make her pay _in bed_. Gods, Kagome, you're way more fun as a grownup than you ever were as a little girl."

"Shippou!" Kagome smacked him on the arm. But she was grinning.

The kitsune, snickering, fell over sideways.

Buffy smiled politely. Kagome cleared her throat and said, "How's the hand?"

"Fine."

It wasn't fine; Buffy could tell by the way he had it clamped to his chest that it was hurting. However, he also wiggled his fingers when he said that, which astonished her -- she'd seen bone and charred meat when his brother had carried him up the stairs. Kagome had said that Inuyasha healed quick, but that was truly impressive.

"Let me see." Kagome reached for it.

"It's _fine_."

"Okay, then you won't mind me seeing."

Reluctantly, Inuyasha let her look. "No more codeine."

"You're coherent, so no, no more pills. If they decide to attack us, I need you sober now that you're able to defend yourself." Kagome unwrapped the gauze that was wound around his fingers. Buffy, despite herself, moved closer. "That was as much to make you sleep it off as it was about the pain, and you know it, dog-boy. You were in absolutely no shape to fight and you heal much quicker if you sleep."

Apparently, Kagome was right about his rate of healing. His palm was covered in shiny pink flesh. Inuyasha cautiously flexed his fingers, and didn't wince, but Kagome frowned at him. "You're going to lose your claws on that hand."

"They'll grow back."

"Yeah, but if you need to fight, don't forget they might come loose. They won't grow back overnight." Kagome turned his hand over and inspected the back.

"I know that, wench." He yanked his fingers away from her and put his arm back in the sling.

"Yeah, well, you know I also worry about you." She didn't seem surprised or offended by his reaction. Buffy thought if Spike had called her wench, she would have bloodied his nose.

"Where's my fucking brother, anyway?" Inuyasha stood back up.

"Haven't a clue." Kagome shrugged, seemingly unoffended by the obscenity.

"He's in the library with Angel, Spike and Kavin," Buffy said, helpfully. Inuyasha's brother gave her even more wiggins than Inuyasha. She'd seen Willow's research on the man. Inuyasha was more-or-less a white hat; Sesshoumaru was, while not precisely evil, not one of the good guys.

And Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru apparently took sibling rivalry to a whole new level. Sesshoumaru was missing an arm due to a fight with Inuyasha. Inuyasha had lived the last four hundred and fifty years in Europe and America due to Sesshoumaru literally kicking him off the island.

__

They really ought to go on Jerry Springer, she thought.

"I need to go talk to him."

"Upstairs, to the right." She gestured.

"Thanks." Inuyasha headed off to find him.

Buffy stared after him. "Umm. Should we ..."

Shippou sighed. "I stopped trying to get between Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha a couple centuries ago. They won't actually kill each other."

"Probably." Kagome agreed with this, with a roll of her eyes.

"The pissing match can be entertaining to watch, too." Shippou smiled, as if at fond memories.

The two of them were on guard duty for the front door; they'd assigned everyone to various posts around the hotel to, hopefully, repel any bad guys. Or at least provide advance warning by virtue of screaming loudly. Kagome and Shippou were, after Willow and the regrettably wounded Inuyasha, probably the heaviest hitters they had. The front door was the most likely point of invasion, and so, they'd been assigned to watch it since Willow was currently doing something with Andrew and magic that Buffy wasn't sure she wanted to know the details on. "Kagome, I'll take over here, if you want to go check on Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha."

Kagome's eyes flashed with a bit of sudden irritation. "Inuyasha will be fine, Buffy. He's not going to bite anyone."

"Yeah." Shippou agreed. "I'd worry lots more if we weren't in the middle of a siege by enemy forces. Then they might beat on each other just for fun."

Well, that sounded like she was going to be the one responsible for Inuyasha-watching. She sighed and went after him.

--

Spike looked up as Inuyasha entered. He could smell blood and charred flesh wafting from the hanyou, and Inuyasha definitely wasn't at full strength: he could hear the man's heart beating at twice the rate it should, and he was even paler than normal.

Still, he looked alert, and steady on his feet. Spike was impressed; he would have been down for the count for days after injuries like Inuyasha's.

Sesshoumaru nodded briefly at his brother, but said nothing. Kavan, however, favored him with a brief grin, "Hey, Inu-sama."

That earned Kavan a dark look from Inuyasha, no reaction from Sesshoumaru, and a snort from Angel -- who spoke at least the basics of Japanese and was apparently amused by anyone calling Inuyasha _sama_. Well, Angel had heard stories of the hanyou; some from Buffy, and more humorous ones from Spike. None of them exactly presented him in a respectable light.

Spike asked, "Feeling better?"

Inuyasha grunted. "I can fight it I have to. What do we know about the situation now?"

Angel steepled his fingers and regarded the half-demon for a long moment before answering. Spike wondered if Angel was deciding if he could trust Inuyasha, or if he was just unhappy with the news he was about to divulge. Or, possibly, given his expression, he was just constipated. "We were just discussing it. Willow's been trying to break the barrier, but it reflects all magic she throws at it back at her. She says it's not so much a barrier as a fold in space. We could escape by burrowing underneath it -- or leaving via the storm sewers -- but the Unseelie are massing beneath us."

"They're after Buffy." Spike voiced his deepest concerns. "Well, Buffy and the rest of the command, but if they take Buffy out, Slayer Central's effectively crippled."

Buffy was an effective leader -- and Spike didn't think anyone below her had what it would take to pick up the reins and manage the army of Slayers. Most likely, the Slayers would degenerate into a squabbling mess of bickering politics, and the bad guys would defeat them while they were still deciding who got to lead. Slayers were leaders, not

And that was aside from the fact that the thought of Buffy, dead, broke his heart. He'd always loved her ... but now, after all they'd been through, both together and apart, it was _different_. He had a very hard time imagining his world without Buffy in it. He loved her. He always had.

But he hadn't believed, until recently, that she loved him back. And being truly loved back ... that changed everything.

As he was thinking dark thoughts about their attackers' goals, Buffy stepped into the room behind Inuyasha. Inuyasha glanced at her and she met the hanyou's gaze and quickly averted her eyes. Spike caught a whiff of attraction between the both of them that made him simply want to laugh out loud. Hormones at work, there; nothing would _ever _come of it, because Inuyasha was about as devoted to Kagome as a man could be to any woman. And he was confident that Buffy loved him.

Inuyasha was doing a lot better at concealing it than Buffy. There was nothing on the half-demon's face but a dark glower. Then again, Kagome would kick his ass into next week -- or possibly just _sit _him into a small crater -- if Inuyasha gave any clue of attraction towards another woman. He had a lot more incentive to keep a poker face than Buffy did.

"Kavan," Buffy said, "You've dealt with the Unseelie more than we have. Do you have any suggestions?"

"Run like hell?" The Sidhe prince suggested, with a faint smile.

"Do you think our speculations about this being a fold in space are right?" Buffy asked him, a direct question. Kavan didn't say much; he reminded Spike a bit of Oz, only taller, and with long hair.

Kavan shrugged. "Perhaps. The sidhe -- both Seelie and Unseelie courts -- are masters of dimensional travel. It could well be a rift, a fold not just in space, but time as well."

"And us without a phone booth." That was Inuyasha. He frowned. "Time?"

"Time passes differently when dimensional rifts are involved. Have you never heard of people lost inside hollow hills, who emerge centuries later no older than when they disappeared? Or conversely, people who lose decades of their life when only moments have passed above the hill ... this is due to dimensional rifts created by my people."

Kavan fell silent.

Sesshoumaru, to Spike's surprise, showed more than a little alarm at this pronouncement. Though his expression didn't change, his heart started racing, and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. He said, shortly, "This is unacceptable."

"Oye." Spike didn't like Sesshoumaru's reaction; the demon was hiding something. "What's got your panties in a twist? You're nearly immortal."

Sesshoumaru said simply, "I have obligations and responsibilities in the current time."

"You're not the only one," Spike rolled his eyes. "We have over a thousand little girls who need us, and a world besides. And you?"

Sesshoumaru hesitated a long, long moment. However, it was Kavin who spoke, earning himself a silent and thin-lipped glare from the yukai lord. "Rumor has it on the streets that Sesshoumaru has a daughter, so I'd warrant his responsibilities in the real world consist of _one _little girl. And possibly her mother."

"Her mother's dead," Sesshoumaru said, quietly. And clearly unwillingly. "Where did you hear this? I have told no one of her. Jaken is the only one who knows, besides myself."

Kavin shrugged.

"You're a daddy?" Inuyasha hooted, suddenly, sounding vastly amused. The hanyou laughed, slapping his good hand against his thigh. "I would so love to see you change diapers, Fluffy."

"Hence, the jeans." Sesshoumaru said, a tight smile on his lips. Spike had seen Sesshoumaru in his full demon-lord regalia before and tended to agree that jeans were far more practical for dealing with spitup, snot, and poopy diapers. Baby vomit would be very hard to get out of the fur boa. And if Sesshoumaru said nobody else knew about the baby, then that meant he -- and his toady -- were the ones raising her.

The mind boggled.

As Spike had suspected, Sesshoumaru confirmed, "Jaken is with her."

"Oh, _there's _an appropriate nursemaid for a sprog!" Inuyasha was cackling with glee.

"He is very loyal." A slightly more genuine smile touched Sesshoumaru's lips. "And Anna is very fond of him."

"Anna?" Inuyasha cocked his head. "That sounds like a human name, Sesshoumaru."

Sesshoumaru went motionless, with no expression on his face. Spike couldn't read what he was thinking, but Inuyasha apparently knew his brother a lot better. The half-demon snarled, "You _didn't_. After you kicked me out of Japan because you were _ashamed _I was half-human, you made a hanyou all your precious own. Fuck me running, Sesshoumaru, you always were a god damned hypocrite ..."

Inuyasha's fists were balled, and his eyes narrowed in rage.

"And yet still, you do not understand my motives." Sesshoumaru said, quietly.

"I understand you're an asshole ..." Inuyasha crouched, clearly planning to spring on his brother. In two seconds, there would be one hell of a fight in the middle of the hotel's library.

Sesshoumaru straightened up, cool as a cucumber, waiting for that attack.

The fight never came. Inuyasha spat, suddenly, and put his back to his brother, and said, "This is not the place for a fight. I'll kick your butt all the way back to Japan later, you ass ..."

At that moment, a rumble shook the building, and glass broke. Inuyasha's sword seemed to spring of its own volition into his hand. Without skipping a beat, he said, "... but I'm going to kill some Unseelie, first."


	11. Chapter 11

Author's notes:

You can blame Scarred Sword Heart for the vampire officer of Torin's army. And you will see more of him in the sequel to Unseelie, where he'll have a starring role.

evil grin

Those of you who read my LJ (ljmouse.) may recognize the vampire from some musings pn it (and an ah-hah! moment from something Sword Heart said). Basically, a lightbulb went on, and I knew I had a story to tell. And since I'd already crossed one anime with Buffy, why not two?

And for those who don't read my journal: Why, yes, Torin's little officer is who you think he is.

--

Buffy followed Inuyasha out of the library, with the rest of the men close on her heels. The hanyou was incredibly quick despite his injuries -- he hit the stairs several strides ahead of her, and without hesitation, leaped off the second floor landing and right into the midst of a pitched battle. His sword flared full size in mid air, and his teeth were bared in a vicious grin. His white hair flowed like a banner behind him.

It was a ferocious battle already, with just Shippou and Kagome in the midst of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of monsters. Shippou was no longer a short, red-haired man with a bushy tail. Buffy had seen Sesshoumaru's real form before; apparently, fox demons were closely related. At least, she assumed the percheron sized fox in the middle of the lobby, glowing green with foxfire, nine tails lashing the air, was Shippou. Who else would it be?

And Kagome was fighting as a team with the fox.

At Shippou's feet, under his head and the shelter of his bared, snapping teeth, Kagome had her bow drawn. The demons couldn't reach her, and she was shooting arrow after arrow into masses of mixed unholy creatures. Shippou's fangs -- and the occasional gout of deadly fire -- was keeping the mob back. Foxfire rolled off his flanks in glowing, hissing waves; none of the demons were trying to get him from behind.

One quick scan of the battlefield and she saw things with tentacles, and things with slime. Insects and arachnids and reptiles. Things with too many limbs, and creatures with no limbs at all. It was a seething, rolling mass of hell in the lobby, with more creatures pouring through the front door every heartbeat. A tidal wave of demons. She couldn't see the floor, except for a clear spot around Shippou, for all the monsters down there.

It was loud. They screamed and gibbered and snarled and shouted in demonic languages.

Time seemed to slow.

Into that chaos Inuyasha landed. And one instant after he disappeared under a wave of enemies, body parts began to fly. Alien blood spattered to the ceiling, and she heard the half-demon's snarls and curses over the roar of the attacking forces. The sound of Inuyasha's voice, raised in a battle rage, brought nightmares to mind. She ruthlessly squealched them; she didn't have time to indulge bad memories in the middle of a battle.

She snapped to sudden awareness that she needed to start issuing commands -- the other Slayers and the men were coming up behind her. Only a heartbeat had passed.

"Sesshoumaru! Kavan! Get down there and help Kagome!" She pointed, but they were already moving beyond her position at the top of the stairs -- along with the neko-youkai, who streaked past her with a fighting squall. In midair the cat transformed into a flaming demon-cat and the squall went from high pitched like an alley cat's to a thunderous lion's roar. When Kirara hit the ground demons scattered as if they'd been bowled over. And then the cat started pouncing and killing, looking rather like a very large housecat surrounded by a room full of mice.

She had worried about being able to see during a fight, with the power being out. However, between Kirara's fire and Shippou's, the room was as brilliantly lit as day.

Sesshoumaru was two strides behind the cat and he also hit the ground transformed into a three-legged dog -- one three times Shippou's bulk. When he took up a position beside Shippou, the top of Kagome's head only came up to the middle of his foreleg. He filled the room to overflowing, trampling the demons as much as slashing and biting. And then he started to slay things with carefully controlled and precise blows.

Over the thunderous noise of the battle, Buffy continued to issue orders, cupping her hands around her mouth so they would hear her. "Spike! Angel! Girls! Guard the stairs, don't let them farther into the building! Wil, can you do something to get Kagome out of there ...?"

Kagome, mortal, was vulnerable. The youkai and Inuyasha could hold their own, but one bad blow could kill a human. The enemies were too dense, and Kagome too strategically valuable to risk.

But as she had been afraid of, Kagome went down under the multiple arms of something like a giant tarantula that slipped under Shippou's flaming jaws. Then, to her relief, fire crackled across the lobby from Willow's spread hands. The demon, burning and twitching, thrashed across the floor. Shippou grabbed Kagome with his teeth and yanked her back to her feet. She was out of arrows, though.

Inuyasha grabbed the burning tarantula and swung it by one leg in an arc, bowling over the demons between him and Kagome with fiery blows. And then he was beside her, and they were back to back with Shippou and Sesshoumaru looming over them.

Willow made a swirling gesture with her hands. Arrows wrenched out of fallen monsters and swooshed across the lobby and back into Kagome's quiver. Kagome gave Willow a startled look and a lightning-fast thumb's up before snapping another bolt into the body of something that looked like a skeletal horse, with head of a spider. Kagome's arrows started returning to her as fast as she could fire them.

Buffy slipped between Angel and Spike, joining them at defending the stairs, satisfied that her people knew what to do and were fighting as a rather effective team.

Inuyasha apparently had the same thought as Buffy about Kagome's safety in the fray however, because in between her attempts at repelling monsters trying to ascend the stairs, she saw him grab Kagome. He leaped over the top of the monsters and landed next to Buffy, dropped Kagome, and then, with an almost gleeful yell he tore back into the fight. There were vampires now, coming in through the doors behind the larger creatures. Vampire dust began to fill the air -- Inuyasha dealt with vampires by dismemberment.

Something was happening to Inuyasha -- she could see his eyes were the red of blood, and facial stripes like his brother's marked his high cheekbones. His voice was different; he'd quit screaming in words and now just growled as he fought. And boy could he fight -- she'd never seen him battle before, except when she was facing him. Now she understood that, hand to hand, a mortal human -- even a Slayer -- had no prayer of succeeding. He was literally tearing apart creatures ten times his size.

She thought Inuyasha's bodycount was probably higher than even Sesshoumaru's, despite the discrepancy in size. He was simply an unstoppable killing machine. She shuddered, even as she fought off her own demons, to think that she'd begun to think of him as a regular guy. She could see the light of madness in his bloody eyes now and it scared her.

Someone shouted something near the door, voice pitched to be heard over the chaos of the battle. Buffy kicked a praying mantis-like creature in the head, then looked for the source of the voice. She saw red hair, and below that gleaming amber eyes -- a vampire, in game face. He was dressed not in rags like others, but in a neat uniform of black and silver. Again, he shouted.

The monsters began to fall back.

An officer, Buffy realized. The red-haired vampire was someone in charge. The Unseelie had sent an army of hellspawn after them, and the red-haired demon was leading them.

Inuyasha, with a wordless, inarticulate yowl of rage, launched himself at the vampire. Tessaiga was bright in his hands.

The vampire had a slim, glittering sword in one hand. She rarely saw fledges fight with swords -- this, then, was an older vampire. And by the way he was holding the sword, he was very skilled. She'd been in her share of swordfights and that stance told her that he knew what the hell he was doing,.

He deftly sidestepped Inuyasha's charge and the sword hissed through the air in a glittering arc. Tessaiga flared and seemed to swing around to parry of its own volition. Inuyasha's eyes, still crimson, widened and he staggered under the force of that blow. Steel screeched against the hanyou's magical blade, and Buffy winced even as she slayed a lesser vampire of her own. Inuyasha's hands had to be burning after that strike.

The vampiric leader was short -- against Inuyasha's lanky six feet of height, he looked like almost fragile. If she hadn't seen how he could move, she would have thought him an easy mark. Loose red hair, greasy and unkempt, snarled into ropes, fell around his face. One cheek was scarred.

She realized she'd seen amber eyes, but the vampire wasn't completely in game face. His face was human. Young. More pretty than handsome, but definitely good looking despite the tangled mass of dreadlocks that was his hair.

Inuyasha lunged again -- blindly attacking even as Buffy was taking stock of her opponent. Alarmed, Buffy shouted a warning, "Be careful!"

She was concerned, because the vampire was no fledge that Inuyasha could rip apart with his bare hands. Because he was eyeing Inuyasha with coldly calculating skill. Because he held a sword like it was an extension of his arm. Because she knew somehow that Inuyasha would not win that fight.

Kagome had apparently come to the same conclusion and she didn't bother with a warning to her boyfriend. Her voice, clear and commanding, split the air. "OSUWARI!"

Inuyasha crashed into the floor.

Kagome's arrow sped fast and true towards the vampire's heart.

And the vampire neatly swatted it out of the air with his sword.

Again the vampire shouted something. And then he spun and ran through the door, with those monsters that could still move following after. With frantic haste they scrambled right over the top of Inuyasha, but none paused to finish him. Kagome put a few arrows into their backsides as they retreated, and Shippou sent one last gout of foxfire after them, frying two insectoids.

And then, except for the groaning of the wounded, there was silence. And it was dark, as Kirara and Shippou's fires died out. Buffy reached for the flashlight in her pocket, and beside her, Spike held up his lighter. Other lights flicked on: flash lights and cell phones.

Sesshoumaru wiped gore from his face, then casually cut a hole to hell with Tensaiga and began throwing dead demon bodies through it. Buffy spared him a brief glance; he wasn't injured. She didn't see anyone among her people obviously hurt -- just minor wounds -- though she seemed to be missing a few Slayers. She hoped they were tardy to the battle and not out there mixed in with the dead and dying enemies.

With that thought, she stepped out onto the battlefield and began flashing her light about.

The flashlight's beam flickered over a figure several feet from her: Inuyasha stood, staring at them. She froze, and the others started to converge their lights on him. His eyes gleaming red in the glow. He was breathing hard with his fangs visible and his fingers curved into claws. The tips of his injured hand were freely bleeding -- as Kagome had predicted, his claws had ripped loose in the fight.

"Inuyasha." Kagome's voice was calm, quiet. She stepped calmly across the floor, boots splashing in ichor.

He blinked.

"Inuyasha, it's over."

He padded towards them. Buffy tensed. She could sense predatory intensity -- and furious anger -- rolling off the hanyou as he moved. She could so easily see him turning on them, she could see him shredding every last living person in the room into hamburger. There was madness and rage and no humanity in his eyes now. His gaze was fixated on Kagome, with all the intensity of a hunting predatory.

He stopped a few feet away from her.

Buffy said, voice low so as to not provoke him, "Can you ... can you Osurawawa-something him again?"

"I don't need to," Kagome said, even as Inuyasha quivered and twitched. Every muscle in his body was tense. Very clearly she said again, "It's over, Inuyasha. We won. Come back to me now."

He blinked. One ear twitched. And then he lunged -- a quick move not to kill her, but to wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her hair and hold her tight and close to his chest. Inuyasha said, to no one in particular, in a voice that was hoarse from shouting battle cries, "I needed ... I needed to be youkai in that fight to stay alive."

"He's still healing," Kagome explained, to Buffy, "He needed the extra strength. Letting his youkai half take over was smart tactics. I don't think he feels much pain when he's youkai. But it is scary, because I can remember a time when he couldn't control himself at all and would have killed me."

"A long time ago." Inuyasha sounded mildly annoyed. "Geeze, Kagome. Have some faith in me. I've got more control now. It isn't like I haven't been dealing with this for seven centuries."

"You've got no more brains than an animal when you're like that, Inuyasha. Animals make mistakes. At least your youkai is as much in lust with Kagome as your human soul is, so you'd follow her to the ends of the Earth to do her bidding." That was Shippou, who punched Inuyasha in the shoulder on his way past with companionable affection. Shippou was back to his own form. "Anybody know who the red-haired vamp was?"

Buffy shrugged. She didn't find Shippou's teasing at all comforting; what would they do with a demon Inuyasha if Kagome wasn't around? "Good swordsman. Never seen him before."

"That's Torin's right hand man." Kavan offered. "He's been around for awhile, we think he's been a vampire for over a century. He used to work for the youkai, actually -- Inuyasha, I'm surprised you haven't run into him before. "

"Not surprising; we left Japan four centuries ago." Inuyasha straightened up from his grasp on Kagome. His eyes and face were back to normal. He ran a hand through his hair, and found a clawed insectile finger tangled in the tresses. Casually, he untangled it and flicked it towards his brother's hell portal. His hair was matted with various fluids -- well, they were all covered in gore.

"Oh." Kavan hesitated a moment, then added, "Rumor has it that vampire used to be a samurai before he was turned. Be careful; he's very good with that sword. I've faced off with him once and the only reason I survived was that he let me live. He wanted me to take a message back to my father. I've never seen anyone humanoid move that fast in my life, and I've known a lot of swordsmen."

"What's his name?" Buffy asked. Names were important for research.

Kavan shrugged. "That's the weird thing. He doesn't seem to have one. Torin just calls him hitokiri, but that's not a name, it's a title."

"Manslayer." Kagome provided the Englist translation, and then scratched something yucky off her cheek. "Somebody's been watching too many samurai dramas. Anyway. Buffy, where's Hanako?"

Hanako was one of the missing slayers.

"Here." Sesshoumaru indicated a corpse, lying in the shadows of the hotel's front desk. Buffy hadn't seen her go down -- had not seen how they'd killed her. He stood over it.

"Son of a bitch," Spike said, but was then brushed aside as Inuyasha and Shippou converged on her, with Kagome on their heels.

But it was Kirara -- now in her lapcat sized form -- who turned to Sesshoumaru. With more understanding than Buffy would ever have credited the neko-youkai as having, she sat down in front of Sesshoumaru and stared up at him with enormous, pleading eyes. And mewed piteously.

Sesshoumaru spared the cat a disdainful glance, then stepped over her and revived Hanako with one casual swipe of his blade. He said dismissively, "I'd be a fool not to bring back a skilled fighter during a war, cat."

Kirara jumped into Hanako's lap as she sat up, then with a cheerful prip, stropped against her side. Hanako stroked the cat and stared up at them with confused eyes. "I ... I ... I died."

"Yeah." Kagome offered her a hand up. "You did."


	12. Chapter 12

Kagome bent over and started helping Sesshoumaru clear away the mess on the battlefield. Three years as a slayer had taught her a certain pragmatic approach to blood and guts: best to get rid of the body parts as quickly as possible, before they started to stink.

Buffy, nose wrinkled and apparently less inclined to start the mop-up immediately, picked her way around a slug-like creature that was twitching occasionally in death throes. The slug's insides were visible and Kagome recognized Inuyasha's handiwork. He'd done well, though as usual, she absolutely hated to see him in youkai form. Inuyasha had never let go of Tessaiga but Shippou was completely accurate about his lack of IQ as a demon. He was scary stupid when he let go of his humanity.

She wasn't sure if she worried more about when he might do to others, or what others might do to him. Just now, the red-haired vampire could have killed him in a fight. She was pretty sure that Tessaiga had swung itself around of its own volition to block the vampire's blow. The sword was uncanny like that. Inuyasha was a lousy swordsman -- he just had a fancy magical sword to make up for those lack of skills. He wielded Tessaiga with all the grace of a meat cleaver.

Now, though, Inuyasha was pretty much back to his hanyou self -- which meant he was being hyper-protective and he'd taken up a position guarding the lobby door. He stood right in front of it, arms folded, bare feet spread wide, jaw set. Anything coming through that door would need to get past him. If the demons attacked en mass again, he wouldn't be able to stop them, but he would slow them down long enough for the others to have time to react.

Buffy, axe slung over her shoulder and a grim set to her own jaw, joined Inuyasha. This earned Buffy a dark look from the hanyou. However, she said something to him that appeared to relax him a bit. She was looking at his injured hand, and in response to her questions, he flexed it. Already, new claws were growing in. Satisfied that he wasn't mortally wounded, she offered him a plastic bottle of water. Inuyasha accepted the water and said, with reluctant good manners, "Thank you."

Kagome, observing this while she lugged a scaly reptilian limb to Sesshoumaru's hell hole, smiled to herself. Buffy was clearly offput by Inuyasha, and given their history, this was only to be expected. However, Buffy took care of her people -- and seeing that everyone had their wounds tended, and were well hydrated, was part of that.

"I want to try to break out." Inuyasha glared at the barrier.

"Wait until Willow has a chance to study it more. We don't know what is on the other side." Buffy made it sound like an order, and this earned her a scowl from Inuyasha. Kagome caught his gaze from across the mouth and mouthed 'osuwari' and Inuyasha's ears went flat. Now was not the time to get in an argument with Buffy over just how much authority she had when it came to commanding Inuyasha to do things. And Buffy was right about not making rash moves, before they understood their situation fully.

Buffy turned to walk away, her next target obviously Sesshoumaru -- she had more water bottles in her hands. Just as she turned, however, a ferocious screech split the air and tentacles shot through the entrance. One wrapped around her waist and yanked her towards the door.

"Buffy!" Willow screamed.

Inuyasha didn't scream, or growl, he just leaped and grabbed the tentacle. He pulled his sword, clearly intending to hack and slash at it. But the tentacle recoiled ... yanking both of them right out of the lobby and into the darkness beyond.

"Buffy!" Spike lunged out the doors after them, with Angel hot on their heels.

There were twin sizzling pops and then a muffled "Bloody hell!" that could have come from either vampire. The two staggered back inside, charred a bit from contact with the barrier.

"Is she ... is she gone?" Willow stammered, into the shocked silence.

"Inuyasha ..." Kagome whispered, as Shippou put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"... Inuyasha's probably shredding them to bits right about now." Shippou said, though he sounded thoroughly nonplussed.

"Doubtless," Sesshoumaru agreed.

--

Buffy came to consciousness slowly, aware that her head hurt first and that she was vaguely nauseous. Then, slowly, she realized she was being held in someone's arms. The someone was strong, with rock hard muscles, and she thought at first it might be Spike.

The hands touching her had claws, and long, thick hair whispered across her arms. She could also smell a musky male scent that wasn't anything like Spike's mix of cologne and cigarettes. And a thin line of stitches on one arm tickled her cheek.

"Buffy," Inuyasha's voice made her open her eyes -- only to find they were in darkness. "We're in a cell of some sort. They took Tessaiga. I wanted to wait until you were conscious before I broke out. I played dumb after they captured me. They're too fucking stupid to realize they can't keep me in here with a few ofudas on the door."

"Put me down!" Being cradled in Inuyasha's arms was more than a little embarrassing.

"Floor's got an inch of nasty water on it. It's ice cold." Inuyasha sounded a little uncomfortable himself. "I didn't want you getting hypothermic."

She would never have thought he knew a word that big. Or that he would be that considerate, particularly of her.

He shifted his weight, then, and lowered her to the ground. He was more careful than she ever would have expected. Was he worried that she was hurt worse than she felt?

And she discovered he wasn't kidding about the cold, slimy water. It immediately soaked through the canvas of her sneakers. "Eww, my shoes!"

"I'm barefoot," Inuyasha pointed out, sourly. "And I think your shoes were trashed already. You have demon guts on them."

He was probably right; the lobby had been a disgusting mess after the battle. Still, complaining made her feel a bit better.

She asked, "What happened ...?"

"You got grabbed by a nasty." Inuyasha's voice was low. "We both got yanked through the barrier. It's not LA on the other side, it's some sort of fucking demon dimension, with a big emphasis on the demon. We lasted about two seconds in the fight. Actually, you lasted less than that; you got smashed into a rock right away and knocked out."

She couldn't remember. Her head felt muzzy. "I think I have a concussion."

"It doesn't smell serious." He didn't sound overly concerned. "You've only been out about fifteen minutes. Sort've half out of it, you were moaning and cussing and stuff."

"So they took you down too?" That would have been a fight she would like to have seen.

"God-damned stink demon." Inuyasha sounded completely disgusted with himself. "They took Tessaiga away from me. We need to get it back before we do anything else."

"Your magic sword?"

"It's more than just a magic sword." Inuyasha splashed through the fetid water to the door -- now that her eyes were adjusting, Buffy realized she could see a thin sliver of light around it. "It's got spells in it. Only a half-demon can use it, but ..." He trailed off.

She guessed what he was thinking. "... Vampires are sorta like half-demons."

"Never tested that theory. Don't particularly want to. I'm not the only bastard out there, though, an' plenty of 'em ain't on our side." He peered out a crack between two beams on the door. "We're in a dungeon of some sort. A really wet one."

He was far more talkative now than she'd ever heard him before. And she'd never really thought of him as either being very intelligent or capable of much planning. Certainly, during the fight earlier he had seemed like a killing machine -- focused on one thing, and that was shredding as many bad guys as possible.

He glanced at her -- the dim light picked up the faintest glow of his white hair as he turned his head. She wondered if he saw in the dark as well as he could smell, or if he could use his enhanced hearing to fight blind. The latter wouldn't surprise her.

"Without Tessaiga, I've got a problem in a fight." He padded back to her. In a tone of confession, he said, "Centuries ago -- when I first met Kagome -- I could be angered into turning youkai. And as a youkai, I was crazy. All I would do was kill, and kill, and kill until there was nothing left to kill. Or until somebody stopped me."

A short, chuffed laugh slipped between his lips. "I was a very angry young man."

"Wow, and you're so much less angry-ish now."

Her words slipped out before she had the good sense to edit them to something less baiting. To her surprise, however, her comment didn't didn't provoke an explosion. Instead, he continued in a somewhat more annoyed tone of voice, "Tessaiga was enchanted to stop me from turning youkai when I didn't want to. Then I learned to control my youkai side a little better -- with Tessaiga in hand. I can chose to turn youkai, and I will generally return to myself at Kagome's call -- or Amelia's, before her -- without killing anyone that I shouldn't."

You killed twelve people you shouldn't have, she thought, but she hadn't seen the stripes on his face when he'd lit into her in that bar three years ago. He'd been hanyou, not yukai, when he'd attacked them and killed Kennedy. After they'd killed Amelia. His rage then hadn't been demonic; his rage had been fueled by human grief and a very human soul.

"I think ... if I have to ... I'll be okay fighting without Tessaiga." He padded to one wall of their cell and trailed a finger down the stones. She heard rock splinter. Okay, maybe baiting him hadn't been the brightest thing to do in the world. "If I'm not -- just get out of my way. I'm still pretty pissed off at you."

"Oh." Shippou had commented on Inuyasha's lack of brains as a youkai; she'd never thought that he still carried a grudge and that he might attack her in demon form because of it.

"I loved Amelia." Again she heard rocks chip and splinter. "And so did my demon half."

"Can -- can we get out of here now?" He was making her nervous. She kept envisioning him spinning around and attacking her.

"Okay, stand back."

She expected him to bust the door down. Instead, he just punched a fist through the stone wall. Boulders tumbled down. Beyond, people -- demons -- screamed in alarm. The noise was thunderous.

"They put ofudas on the damn door," he said, by way of explanation, with a quick roll of his eyes. "So I made my own exit."

She could see him now -- he was filthy dirty, and had a visible bruise under one eye, but he was grinning now -- destroying things put him in a good mood. However, he offered her a curiously gracious hand up to clamber over the rubble. Then he bounded off, agile and athletic.

In the corridor beyond, water puddled thick and foul across a hewn stone floor. Torches spluttered and hissed, filling the air with greasy smoke. The air was rank with the sickly sweet scent of decay, like a corpse that had spent a week in the sun. She would have gagged had she not been too busy keeping up with the hanyou.

They made it several hundred feet up the corridor before they met any trouble. Half a dozen -- well, Andrew would have called them orcs, Buffy thought. She'd definitely seen similar in a certain Hollywood movie. Whatever they were, they were neither bright nor a match for Inuyasha's claws. He took them down in a hurry, plowing through a half dozen musclebound brutes like a clawed tornado.

"You could have left me one, you know," she said, amused by his enthusiasm for the fight. He was gleeful, grinning, enjoying the fight. "I know killing nasty monsters is all sorts of fun, but could you share?"

That earned her a quick, blinding smile. It stopped her in her tracks -- he'd never smiled at her before. Not like that, with his defenses down and no mockery in the expression.

What had she done?

Oh.

She'd teased him. She had eased him the way Kagome would, with oblivious disregard for the power and lethal force of his claws. Or perhaps it was that she had teased him like he was part of her gang. In either case, he'd reacted with unexpected warm-fuzzies to her words.

They stared at each other, surroundings momentarily forgotten.

She wondered: Had he fought with such wild, enthusiastic abandon while killing Slayers? Had he screamed, "Allright!" as he leaped into battle, before he tore them apart?

The smile slipped from his face, perhaps in response to her own suddenly darkening expression. Then the moment -- the moment where they might have been friends -- vanished. He turned his back coldly to her and ran down the corridor towards the next fight, leaving her behind.

She stepped over one of the orcish-things; it was clawed to bits, had been naked when Inuyasha had killed it except for a silver bracelet, and it smelled incredibly foul. Then she hurried after him, not wanting to miss the fight. It was un-Slayerlike to let the guy do all the fighting, after all. No matter how good he was at it.

--

Think what she would about Inuyasha -- having him on her side in a fight was definitely of the awesome. His body count of demons was racking into the hundreds; she'd killed twelve monsters herself, but he was an unstoppable fighting machine. After half an hour of nonstop battle her heart was pounding in her chest and she had a stitch in her side but Inuyasha wasn't even winded.

They'd fought their way out of the dungeon and were now in the great hall of a demon keep. The decor was Dark-on-Dark, with an extra dose of Dark. Dark wood, dark stone, bloody tapestries of nighttime battles, smoldering torches, gloomy shadows. She'd seen more cheerful graveyards.

Apparently, they'd disturbed a dinner, because a meal was on the table. She smelled roasting meat and the metallic tang of blood and something that was eye-wateringly spicy.

An army of mixed demons faced them -- surrounded them, really, but Inuyasha would tear through these forty or fifty creatures just about as easily as the last few hundred. As long as she didn't get hit by flying body parts, they'd both come out okay.

A short, sharp word cut across the growls of the enemy demons. They fell silent, and melted back, then left the room entirely as the red-haired vampire appeared. He clapped his hands mockingly, then said something in Japanese that almost sounded complimentary. As he clapped, she saw he had a thin silver bracelet on one wrist, like the orcs.

Up close, she realized he must have been turned fairly young. He would clean up to be pretty, too, she thought -- not handsome, really, but he was the sort of man who one might consider beautiful. Spoiling his good looks was his desperate need of a bath and the fact that his hair was a ratty, matted mess that hadn't seen a comb in years. Or perhaps decades. Still, even the filth couldn't hide that he had once been a very attractive man.

He was shorter than she was. Under the dirt, there was a scar on his cheek and more on his hands and neck.

The vampire had a silver and black uniform on but she could see it was stained and worn. Still, most of the demons they'd fought had been dressed in rags if they wore anything at all. A dirty, battered uniform was an improvement.

Inuyasha responded with a curt bark of words -- short, sharp, and certainly obnoxious. Then he blinked hard. Tears were running down his cheeks. He looked like he was having a horrible attack of allergies.

"What did he say?" she asked.

"That he regretted sending so many of his minions against me. It was a waste of good trolls." Inuyasha glanced back at her. His grin was strictly feral, despite his streaming eyes. "I told the bastard to go fuck his trolls."

Trolls, hmm. She'd thought they were orcs. Trolls. Orcs. Whatever.

The man shrugged and replied with something that sounded amused.

Inuyasha reached for the sword that wasn't at his waist.

"What did he say?"

"That he prefers young blond women." Inuyasha sounded scandalized. "I'm going to tear his head off and shove it up his ass."

"Inuyasha, he's a vampire," Buffy pointed out, with a laugh. "You won't get any farther than removing his head. Then he'd go poof."

"Oh." Inuyasha considered that for a moment. Then he shrugged. "I ain't good at planning things."

And with that, he launched toward the vampire. However, despite the suddenness of his attack, he didn't take him by surprise. With absolute blinding speed, the vampire whipped his sword out of its sheath. Buffy didn't even see the creature's hand move: one minute he was standing calmly, watching them. The next, Inuyasha was stumbling sideways, and the vampire's sword was shattered into a several pieces.

"Owe!" Inuyasha complained. There was a welt on his arm and blood trickled down it.

Buffy reflected that, just possibly, Kagome's concern for her boyfriend in a fight with this vampire was overrated. And again she revised her estimate of Inuyasha's fighting ability upwards -- that blow would have dismembered a mortal human. And his brains, downward. She sure hoped he was good in bed, because she couldn't imagine Kagome had much else in common with the hanyou. The man was only slightly more intelligent than the trolls they'd been fighting.

At least Spike had an IQ above room temperature.

Inuyasha had been injured by the Unseelie blade earlier -- had it only been yesterday? He still had stitches from it in his arm. Obviously, the Unseelie had some sort of juju that the vampire didn't when it came to injuring the hanyou with a blade.

The vampire looked like he was sucking on a lemon. He stared at the shattered remnants of the sword. Then at Inuyasha. He said something in Japanese that sounded distinctly surprised.

Inuyasha's grin was enthusiastic. He responded in English, with glee in his voice, "I'm going to remove your head and not stuff it up your ass, bastard!"

He grabbed for the vampire, claws bared. The vampire leaped aloft, in an impossible display of athleticism. He somersaulted over Inuyasha's head and landed on the table behind him. A platter of roasted meat went flying; Buffy saw a five-fingered hand among the meat, with a ring still on it, and felt her gorge rise. Had they been eating human meat?

Gods, she hated demons. They were so gross sometimes.

"Don't kill him," Buffy said, hoping Inuyasha would listen to her. "He's in charge and we need him to send us home and give you your sword back."

"I know that." Inuyasha sounded annoyed. "I'll remove his head after we get Tessaiga back. That make you happy?"

"And get home."

"Oh. Yeah. I guess that makes sense." Inuyasha hopped up onto the table. "C'mere, you. I won't hurt you. Yet."

She wondered if Inuyasha was mocking her a little. There was sarcasm in his voice.

The vampire crouched, making a "come here" gesture with his fingers. She wondered what he had in mind -- Inuyasha, clearly, wasn't nearly as suspicious. He charged up onto the table with a sudden roar.

The vampire hooked a pot of soup with his toe and kicked it into Inuyasha's face. Inuyasha howled in pain and fell backwards, frantically wiping his eyes. "It's hot! It's hot! It's hot!"

The scent of chili peppers had suddenly gotten a hell of a lot stronger in the room. Apparently, the soup was the source of the spice. Inuyasha was now rolling around on the ground, making incoherent bubbling noises and wiping at his nose and mouth. Then he threw up, and started gasping for air.

Buffy grabbed the soup pot off the ground, swung it around by its handle, and chucked it at the vampire. He ducked, and the pot sailed over his head, but as he did, she yanked the tablecloth out from under his feet -- slowly, so that he staggered sideways. While he was off balance she tipped the table over. He went down, but not hard as she'd planned. He landed lightly on the ground, with the agility of a gymnest. Damn, but he was good!

Inuyasha had stopped moving. His eyes were rolled back in his skull -- he looked like he was out cold. She wondered if he was allergic or poisoned by chilis? His eyes had been streaming since they'd entered the room.

Well, at least he had a weakness.

She broke a leg off the table, as he vaulted over it to come after her. She'd just have to take the vampire out herself.

The man was tiny, but she didn't let that fool her. She wasn't exactly the tallest person around and she routinely took out creatures many times her size. He had consistently moved with impressive athletic grace, and show real brains when dealing with Inuyasha.

He said something snide sounding in Japanese.

"That's Miss Slayer-sama to you," she retorted, assuming it had been an insult. "Aren't you guys supposed to be polite and stuff?"

He bowed mockingly at her, leaving her to wonder if he understood English or that action was pure coincidence. Then he crouched and flipped airborn, and came at her boots first. Only her slayer reflexes let her dart out of the way. He landed next to her and shot an elbow at her head -- that connected, and with enough force to make her vision go dark. She scrambled away, forcing suddenly unwilling and wobbly legs to move and terrified a death blow would come.

She tripped over Inuyasha and sat down hard with her legs across his back and her butt on the dark stone floor. He reeked of fiery hot soup. And she could see ... oh, gag her, there were fingers in the soup. And it also smelled of warm blood. What was that, the equivalent of chili for demons? Gross.

The vampire had snagged up a chair and swung it at her. She saw the blow coming, realized her wits had been so addled she'd been distracted by the demon soup that covered the hanyou.All she could do was fling a hand up to try to absorb some of the hit.

And with a sudden snarl, as the vampire swung, Inuyasha roared to life. He shot out from underneath her, dumping her head over heels backwards. The chair splintered as Inuyasha pounced on the vampire. Inuyasha was twice the vampire's weight, and many times over his strength, and pure physics won. When she managed to sit back up and her head stopped spinning, she found that Inuyasha had the vampire face down on the ground, his knee planted in the middle of the man's spine, and both wrists clenched in one clawed hand. The vampire was silent.

Finally, the vampire spoke in English: "Kill me. It would be a mercy."

Which wasn't anything she'd ever heard a vampire say before. Say what you would about vampires, they generally didn't have self esteem problems. They were happy with being vampires and they strongly objected to being slain. Suicidal tendencies? Not a vampiric trait. Intrigued, Buffy stood up and walked over to him. "Where's Inuyasha's sword?"

Silence.

"He won't talk." Inuyasha was pulling the belt out of his jeans with his free hand. "He's a samurai. They've a code of conduct and shit. He'll die first."

In a surprisingly mild voice, the vampire said, "It's in my liege lord's bedroom."

"Huh." Inuyasha lashed the vampire's hands together with his belt, pulling it tight enough to hurt. Well, they didn't have to worry about cutting the vampire's circulation off to his fingers.

"I'm a vampire, not a samurai, idiot." The vampire's voice dripped with scorn. "Slayer, go out the door, take the stairs up two flights, go to the end of the hall, climb to the top of the tower. It's in a rack on the wall. He collects magic swords. I assume your half-demon can identify his. Take any others you like, just kill me before he gets here. He's off doing something in New York and won't be back until tonight."

"I smell a trick." Inuyasha yanked the vampire to his feet. As he did, the hanyou wobbled a bit. She realized he wasn't nearly in as good of a shape as she had assumed.

"Kill me now?" The vampire said, hopefully. "Lord Torin will if you don't because I failed him. And he'll make it hurt. Good guys are merciful. Lord Torin ... isn't."

Buffy remembered dead children. She wanted this Lord Torin bad.

"I promise I'll kill you," Buffy said sweetly, "After we find Tessa-whatstit for Inuyasha and you help us get home."

"If Lord Torin catches us, he'll make it hurt." The vampire shuddered, even as Inuyasha was yanking him to his feet. "The bracelets. They give pain. They give enough pain to kill. We all have them. It's how he controls us. Or we'd turn on him in a heartbeat."

"Charming." Buffy said, somewhat distracted. Pain-giving slave-controlling jewelry was a bad science fiction movie standard; she'd never decided if that was art imitating life, or if the Demons of the Week had gotten the idea from human cinema. In either case, she wasn't particularly surprised and had been suspicious of the purpose of the bracelets since she'd seen the first one on an orc-troll-thing. She turned her attention to the hanyou, who had a firm grip on the hanyou but didn't look well. "Inuyasha, are you okay?"

The hanyou's eyes were swollen nearly shut, and his face was covered in snot. She wasn't even sure he could see, now that she looked at him.

"Fucking chilis." He rubbed at his eyes, which was probably not helping matters. Tears were streaming down his face; she could see only slivers of his golden eyes. He sniffled, and his next question confirmed that he couldn't smell much now either. Otherwise, he would have known the ingredients. He asked, "What was in that soup?"

He had part of a finger stuck to his shoulder by gorey, body temperature liquid. Buffy reached out and flicked it off, barely suppressing a gag as she did. "You really don't want to know. -- You, your name is hitokiri?"

"I answer to that." He sounded wary. "It's what Torin has called me for several decades."

"You're going to show us where the sword is and keep your lord's minions from attacking us, and then get us out of here safely, or we'll leave you tied up for Torin to find after we go."

The vampire said snidely, "I must compliment you on your bargaining skills, Slayer."

"Whatever." Buffy rolled her eyes. "C'mon, let's go get the sword."


	13. Chapter 13

Unseelie # 13

"Here, I found our red-haired vampire."

Angel's library was well stocked with research books. Willow, reading by the light of one of the last remaining flashlights, had found a page describing the vampire that had been leading the demon horde. She turned the book around and showed Kagome.

Kagome squinted at it. "Hitokiri Battousai ... Himura Kenshin ... he's a vampire?"

"You know of him?"

"Schoolchildren learn of him." Kagome shrugged to hide the fact that she was thoroughly disconcerted. "He's a hero from the revolution. He was a peasant boy, sold to slavers, later raised by a samurai and taught an arcane form of swordsmanship. He became an assassin during the Bakufu in the late 1800's. Reportedly, he was a brilliant swordsmen -- one of the best ever. He was never defeated in a fight, though he was badly injured several times. He took a vow to never kill again after the revolution; by all accounts, he kept his vow. Later, one of his enemies killed his entire family -- his wife and child -- and all his friends. They never found his body. Legend has it that he killed himself in shame because he could not protect them -- suicide's a bit more culturally acceptable in Japan, so this is seen as romantic, I guess."

She looked up as awful realization struck. Willow met her eyes over the top of the book. Kagome said softly, without looking at the data in the book, because she knew this answer: "He was the one who killed them, wasn't he?"

Spike, who was seated in a chair with his feet propped up on the table and another book in his lap, commented, "Typical story. Newly fledged vampire eats family. I killed m'mum. Well, I turned m'mum and then she tried to boff me, so I had to off her."

"Eww." Kagome frowned at Spike. Just when she forgot he wasn't human, he would say something to remind her that -- soul or not -- he was a vampire. "I so didn't need to know that."

"Chibi, what else does the book say about this hitokiri?" Spike changed the subject. She didn't miss the sudden flash of -- what, regret? -- in his blue eyes.

She looked down at it. The book was strictly factual, itemizing his known significant kills -- there was a Slayer among them -- and associates of his. "He's known for -- ugg, I hate vampires -- present company excluded -- beating his victims nearly to death with the dull side of a sword before he eats them."

"He's a sadistic monster." This came from Kavan, who had been silently standing in the shadows until now. "He's the reason I'm the heir to my father's throne and not the second son. He's Torin's general ... he killed my brother, and sent us the parts back piece by piece in jars of alcohol. He's Torin's dog, his assassin, his right hand man, his most loyal officer. His enforcer."

"Pfft. Vampires aren't loyal." That came from Spike. "Not unless something's in it for him."

"You were," Angel pointed out, with a smirk.

"Not to you."

"To her." Angel meant Buffy, clearly.

"That was love. That was something different. Unless Himura is gay, I doubt he's loyal to Torin so much as serving Torin out of complete self interest." Spike sounded weirdly defensive. "What's in it for him?"

Kavan suggested, with a snort, "A master who encourages him to be a sadistic bastard, and promises him world domination?"

"Bingo," Spike agreed with Kavan's opinion.

"And Torin gets a ruthless killer who rules over his men with a rather effectively cruel hand." Kavan shrugged. "It works for both of them, likely. Torin doesn't have to deal with the day-to-day headaches of managing a demon army. The hitokiri gets to ride Torin's coattails to victory, if he wins."

"Well, he's not going to win," Willow said, absently.

Kavan sighed. "Why, because the bad guys never do? I'd observe we're stuck inside a barrier and you've lost your leader and your most powerful fighter ..."

Sesshoumaru, very delicately, cleared his throat.

Kavan glanced at the youkai lord, but didn't correct his statement. And Kagome agreed with that; Sesshoumaru was certainly capable of racking up the hatch marks in a fight, but Inuyasha held nothing back. Sesshoumaru's dignity got in the way of his hit count sometimes. Though she wasn't about say that to the man.

Kavan concluded, after a moment of pregant silence, "... and Gods only know what they're going to throw at us next."

Spike smiled, a nasty smile that said he was enjoying the thought of murder and mayhem among the enemy. "For all that, another way to look at it is that Rover's gotten beyond that bloody barrier."

"And is probably mauling the bad guys into little bitty bits of hamburger right about now. Anything Inuyasha can get his claws on, he can kill," Kagome said, with confidence. "Pulling him through the barrier was a bad miscalculation on their part. I figure he'll show up any minute to let us out."

--

The hitokiri was quiet and compliant as they climbed the stairs to the tower room. Out the narrow tower windows, Buffy saw a devastated and alien land -- one clearly at war. There were craters, and pits, and trenches; long rows of coiled razor wire; men (or men-like things) huddled around camp fires. Cries drifted up through the glassless arrow slots from the battlefield below -- moans of pain, lusty grunts, cries of rage, sobbing.

Halfway up the tower, they passed a nearly dead woman on the stairs. She wasn't human, but Buffy thought she might have been elven rather than a true demon -- she couldn't begin to guess if she was Sidhe or Unseelie. She moved feebly.

"Huh." The vampire stepped around the near-corpse. In a casual tone of voice certainly calculated to provoke, he said, "I guess Torin is done with her. I thought she'd last longer; daoine sidhe are generally tougher than that."

Buffy considered making the hitokiri's death painful herself, nevermind Torin. Daoine sidhe were the good guys; they were Lord Kavan's people.

Inuyasha had his hands full with the vampire. He gave Buffy a significant look, then glanced down at the wounded woman again -- she was shocked at the concern in his eyes for her. Buffy, without a word, and not actually needing Inuyasha's suggestion, knelt beside her. The woman was covered in blood, in ways that made Buffy coldly angry. And as Buffy rolled her over, she stopped breathing.

Inuyasha shuddered. She saw that out of the corner of her eye; his expression was terribly dismayed.

"Pity." The vampire said, "I don't suppose you'd let me eat her. You interrupted my dinner ... such a waste to let all that blood congeal."

Buffy rounded on him and before Inuyasha could react, she let fly with a furious punch. The vampire rocked backwards against Inuyasha's chest.

He licked at blood from his split lip. "Oh, Buffy-dono, do it again," he purred. "I like it when women hit me. It turns me on."

She pulled her other hand back with the broken table leg in it. "Bet you'd like it if I put a stake through your heart, too."

Inuyasha snapped, "Damnit, Buffy, he's just trying to provoke you."

"Well, he's succeeding." She balled her fist and lowered the stake, and turned back to climbing the stairs. She noted now that the dark stone floor had darker spatters of blood and other bodily fluids. People had died up here, and she was willing to assume some of them were good guys.

At the top of the tower, there was, as the hitokiri had said, a bedroom -- with more more gloom-on-gloomy decor. Plus there were instruments of torture scattered around the room, where one would ordinarily expect to find loveseats and chairs and perhaps a vanity or desk. In one of them, there was a freshly dead body still strung up from hooks. It wasn't human.

"Torin likes to sleep surrounded by the moans of his enemies. He says it's sweet music," the vampire offered helpfully.

"Where's my sword?" Inuyasha demanded.

"Is that it?" Buffy spotted the blade first.

There were gleaming swords all over the walls, hanging on racks. Against the excess of jewels and shiny steel, Tessaiga was small and dull and worn. Still, Torin apparently knew what it was, because he'd put it with the other, shinier, magic blades.

"Would you get it?" Inuyasha clearly wasn't about to let go of his grip on the hitokiri or let the man get too close to any possible weapons. One fight had taught him caution.

Buffy snagged it off the wall. The hilt felt warm in her hands, and snug, and well balanced. This sword was clearly magical; she knew from the moment she touched it. It pulsed in her grip, and she got a feeling of warm greetings from it.

"It likes you," Inuyasha sounded nonplussed. He'd clearly sensed the sword's reaction from across the room. Then he nodded suddenly. "Because Slayers are part demon. That's why. It will defend humans, but it's designed to be wielded by someone who's both human and demon. You apparently qualify."

"Kagome could handle it then, too," Buffy pointed out.

Inuyasha nodded. "We've never tried. It's protected her in the past. But she doesn't need Tessaiga to kick ass."

Buffy handed him the sword after he had a solid grip on the vampire's wrists with his left hand. He shoved the sword into the scabbard, then absently scratched at the stitches on his arm -- the cut itself was entirely healed but nobody had thought to take the time to pull the stitches out. They had all been a little bit distracted.

When the vampire moved, it was so suddenly that she almost didn't register the motion. One moment Inuyasha had a grip on the vampire's wrists -- and the next, the creature was across the room, and the belt was gone from his wrists. Inuyasha, shocked, stared at shredded bits of leather in his hands. Apparently, the vampire had yanked loose in such a way as to make Inuyasha's deadly sharp claws rip through the belt.

"Fuck." Inuyasha's sword flared to life in his hands, car-bumper large and a whole heck of a lot more impressive.

The vampire casually opened a dresser drawer behind him with one hand. And then he made a flicking motion with one hand. A silvery object flew through the air and struck Inuyasha in the chest.

Inuyasha screamed in a tone of voice Buffy had never expected to hear from the hanyou. He collapsed, dropping the sword, as a spell arced and sizzled around him. Tessaiga went dormant in a flash.

The vampire pushed the drawer shut with his hip and said casually, "The jewelry on my wrist? Is the master control. Torin wouldn't kill me for one screw-up -- I'm far too useful to him. We've worked together for decades. He doesn't break his best men because it's wasteful."

Inuyasha howled and writhed. A silvery bracelet appeared around his arm.

Inuyasha finally quit screaming and went limp. She thought he might have passed out until he took a deep, shuddering breath.

The vampire said, "You can't leave this room; it's spelled to contain demons. You will experience pain for fifteen minutes every fifteen minutes until you kill the Slayer. You will not die of this pain; the setting is not high enough. But I assure you, it will be the worst agony of your life. Enough to drive you insane within moments."

Inuyasha lifted his head up. "I ... will not ... kill her."

"We'll see."

The vampire dodged Buffy's attempt to stake him with more of that impossible grace, and darted out the door. Buffy sensed the static energy of a magical barrier and didn't try to follow. Inuyasha, however, lunged after him -- and was repelled back with a sizzling explosion of power. He stumbled to his knees and then stared up at Buffy. "I won't do it. Buffy, I swear to you, I won't. I'll die f..."

He screamed, "Fuuuuuuuuuuck!"

It was the sort of scream that would turn your hair grey. He screamed and he arched his back and he fell over sideways and started kicking. He vomited. And he shouted his girlfriend's name. "Kagome, Kagome help me! Kagome! Kagome! Kagome!"

He cried for her, over and over, begging the absent Kagome to come and stop his suffering. Buffy had never expected that macho Inuyasha would so quickly plead for Kagome's help. They were so very close to each other. The trust, and love, and respect between them -- she'd never had a relationship like that, not even with Angel. Not to the degree those two had.

Stripes appeared on his face, alarming her. His eyes turned red. He'd said to stay out of his way if he turned demon -- how could she do that here, in a tower room where they had been trapped?

And he continued to scream Kagome's name -- but now he scrambled to his feet and dove off into a corner of the room. She could see veins standing out on his arms, and blood had begun to run freely from his mouth. Had he bitten his tongue?

She realized calling for Kagome wasn't completely pointless; if she could come there was a decent chance the miko would do something to nullify the bracelet's spell. Unfortunately, she wasn't here. And Inuyasha wasn't quite coherent enough to realize that.

He screamed until his voice gave out, and then he cowered shamelessly, shivering and shaking. She was utterly unsure of what to do. Buffy had never thought Inuyasha could be pushed into mindless animalistic sobbing by simple pain.

She wondered if she should kill him.

If so, how? Even incapacitated, that would be difficult. A man whose skin could turn steel blades with nothing worse than a welt couldn't exactly be staked to death. Perhaps one of the magic weapons on the wall could do it, but which one?

He was suffering. He was suffering so very much. Perhaps it would be merciful to end it for him now.

Would he turn on her? Would he break?

She feared he would.

But she couldn't bring herself to move.

Finally, he collapsed with a whimper of utter relief as this round of pain ended. She approached him warily, wondering if he'd take the cessation of the spell as a chance to kill her -- to avoid another round. It would be simple for him to lunge at her and snap her neck, or eviscerate her with one savage swipe of his hands. But instead of turning on her and attacking he just lay there, curled into a ball, and then he started rocking back and forth.

Warily, she called his name: "Inuyasha."

No response.

She touched his shoulder, expecting him to flinch or to snarl and turn on her. However, to her surprise, at her touch he relaxed. His skin was clammy, sweaty, and she could feel that he was quivering. But when she squeezed his shoulder a bit more firmly, he looked up at her with enormous golden eyes, and then slowly, toppled over against her. She found she had an armful of hanyou -- Inuyasha crawled into her lap, like a very small boy grown tall, and curled up and shook and just whimpered for several minutes. His dignity, his bravado, his machismo -- she realized they were all a front. Now, he was just terrified and vulnerable and far too shaken to hide it.

"Shhh. We'll get you back to Kagome," she promised.

"I ... all I can think about ... the pain. And stopping the pain. My demon wants to do it. To kill you." His voice was hoarse; he could barely talk. "I won't, I refuse, but ... it would be so easy to lose myself ..."

"You won't." Somehow, she knew this.

"I ..." he had his face buried in her shoulder. He took a deep and shaken breath that rattled down his ravaged throat. "The demon in me hates you. The demon in me has wanted to kill you for a long time. I ... Buffy, I'm letting it go."

"What?"

"The demon is me, and I am the demon and we're both pissed at you. I'm fucking letting it go. I forgive you." Golden eyes met her. Those eyes were soft, and gentle, and somehow very wise. And brimming with completely unexpected tears. "I forgive you. For everything. For Amelia. For hurting me. For pushing me into killing those little girls. You were trying to fight on the side of good. You made mistakes. I forgive you for those mistakes. Your destiny is to save the world and what you did to us was an accident and I have to accept that."

Tears prickled at her eyes. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders tighter -- like she would have with Xander, or Willow, or any of her other friends, if they'd been hurting this much, physically and emotionally. "I don't deserve it."

"If I don't let it go right now," he said, "I will turn youkai and then I will kill you. I won't be able to stop myself. Do you understand?"

"Yeah." She felt humbled. In a choice between killing her and forgiving her, he was committing to forgiveness. She was ashamed, unsure if she would have made the same choice. She never would have expected Inuyasha to let the past go -- or that he would have the insight into his own mind to know what he needed to do.

He buried his face in her shoulder again and hugged her close. "There is nothing I can say that will bring your people back, but I so sorry for what happened. To my wife, to me, to the girls, to you."

"Inuyasha," she started to promise him, "if we get out of this alive, I'll ..." she trailed off, and then said simply, "if we get out of this, I think we'll be friends."

He looked up at her again, and a shy smile touched his lips. She'd never expected to see such genuine feeling in reaction to her simple words. Then he warned, "You'd better move back. I think it's been about fifteen ..."

He was accurate with his estimate of the time that had passed. He groaned and arched his back and thrashed, trying to shove away from her. But she didn't let go. Instead, she held on tighter, even as his features stretched and twisted into demon form, and even as he clenched his clawed hands around her arms and left bleeding scratches. He didn't quite go youkai, but she knew the pain was driving him in that direction.

"Kagome ..." he whimpered, over and over, but he didn't scream now. He just quivered and trembled and shook. There was no danger, she didn't think; no risk that he'd kill her now even to stop unimaginable pain. He would die, first.

Yes. They would be friends. How could they not be, after this?

When it was over, he sat up, and wiped his eyes, and said, "Sorry to lose control."

"It's allowed."

A crooked smile touched his lips, which were flecked with blood. He'd definitely bitten himself. "I thought I knew pain before. Wow. That's something else."

He tried to claw the bracelet off his wrist. The result was an arcing snap of electricity that she knocked him several feet through the air. Apparently, the bracelet couldn't easily be removed.

He swore, and scrambled to his feet, and shook his zapped hand, then stuffed his fingers in his mouth.

"We need to get out of here." She walked to the open doorway. When she got within a few feet of the exit, there was a mild shock and a feeling of resistance. She spotted a rune on the facing wall; better part of half of a lifetime spent slaying had taught her a few things. That was demon calligraphy for, Keep the demons in.

Willow might be the team's Research Goddess, but Buffy wasn't entirely clueless. She'd seen the same markings on a few thousand rooms, cells, objects, and magical knickknacks meant to contain demons. It was working on her because she was a Slayer -- and it was working much stronger on Inuyasha because he was a lot closer to demonkind that she was.

"Can you break a hole in the wall?"

He shook his head. "I think it's spelled all the way around. Torin is smarter than his minions."

"Ceiling? Floor?"

"No."

He stared at the rune for a minute, over her shoulder. He, too, clearly recognized what it was. Even just forty-five minutes ago, she'd have flinched away from his nearness and been wary of his deadly claws. Now, his presence was comforting -- she had a powerful ally on her side right now, one she'd determined she could trust to the bitter end.

Inuyasha grabbed a magic sword at random off the wall, and threw it like a spear at the rune. The sword exploded when it hit the magical force field, leaving a sword-shaped purple after image on her retinas, and a spatter of molten metal that fortunately missed both of them.

"I am not going to try to go through that with Tessaiga," he said, with feeling.

She remembered belatedly that his sword was legendary for its ability to cut through barriers. "Damn."

Inuyasha met her stunned look with a sour expression. "Tessaiga's strong, but it's not unbreakable. I've had it five centuries and I don't want to destroy it just yet."

"There has to be another way out."

"Oh, sure. We just need a human. Someone fully human could walk through that doorway without even knowing there was a ward there." Inuyasha threw a chair at the barrier. The chair flew through it, and hit the rune, but did no damage -- it was etched into the stone. "Unfortunately, I don't even know if this world has a moon, much less when the next new one is."

She regarded him thoughtfully. "You can only go human during the full moon?"

"Or when someone purifies me. Right. But you're not a miko."

"But you can go demon voluntarily."

He glanced at her, then picked up an entire rack -- the kind you stretched people on until they were torn apart -- and threw it out the door. It made a satisfying crash against the wall, but didn't damage the rune. The rack, in a noisy jangle of metal and a crunch of breaking wood bits, tumbled down the stairs.

Then, patiently, he said, "If I'm provoked enough, and in a fighting rage, I can become fully youkai, yes."

"Why can't you become fully human?"

He scratched his jaw. "I dunno. I've never tried it."

"In seven hundred years, you've never tried to become fully human?"

He snorted. "There's a story I'll tell you some other day, about how Kagome and I met. But no, not the way you mean. I've never tried."

"Why not?"

"Because chicks dig the puppy ears." His answer was flippant, his tone amused despite their circumstances. He looked around the room, clearly trying to find something else heavy to throw.

"Be serious for a moment. Why haven't you tried?"

"Keh. Because I'm vulnerable as a human, and I cannot easily turn back." This was the truth, she recognized. "It takes several hours -- or a sunrise -- to turn me back to human. As a demon, I have some natural magic that helps with the transformation from hanyou to youkai and back. But when I am human, I am truly human -- more human than a Slayer. I have no innate powers."

He paused. "Also, I like being a hanyou. Why would I want to be human? I'm happy being who I am."

Which was also the truth. She'd known demons who were ashamed or dissastisfied with their natures -- Spike and Angel came to mind; she knew the two of them would do almost anything to be human. Inuyasha wasn't like that. Inuyasha liked being a frighteningly powerful half-demon with attitude and a very human soul. Still, she had to try to convince him this might work. "Okay, fine. But a human could walk through that door and scratch the damn rune off the wall."

He regarded her thoughtfully. "You're right. But I don't know how to turn myself human."

"Well, how do you turn youkai?"

"I get really mad and the demon comes out to play. Or enough pain will do it ..."

And at that instant, the bracelet activated and he collapsed to the floor, curled up, and started shaking. She knelt beside him, wanting to help. His long white hair pooled around him -- when she put her arms around his shoulders, it was thick and silken against her hands. He wasn't saying a word now; but the sudden acrid scent of urine told her just how very bad it was. He tears ran freely down his cheeks and he was grinding his teeth together, and the stripes were back on his cheeks.

"Get away from me!" he said, suddenly. "I could hurt you!"

"No." She trusted him. She didn't know why, but she did. He wouldn't turn on her.

He grabbed her tighter, suddenly, not to rend her apart, but as a drowning man might grab a life preserver. "Don't, then. Stay here. Don't go. Don't go. Don't go away. I'll lose my mind. I'll lose it. I'll lost it fucking lost fucking lost fucking lost."

"Inuyasha, listen to my voice." She stroked his hair. "Listen to me. Focus on me. You can get through this. It's just a few minutes longer ..."

He threw up -- turning his head so he'd miss her, but splashed her leg anyway. Well, she was already wearing worse. They both needed a bath, after all the ick they'd been exposed to today. Possibly one with bleach in the bath water. She didn't think she'd ever be clean again.

She didn't let go of him and she kept talking. If she shoved him away, she was afraid he'd think she was abandoning him or was afraid of him. He continued to heave, and she pulled his hair back even as her own stomach churned in response.

Finally, he slumped against her in boneless relief as the pain ended. Softly, his voice now thoroughly ravaged by screaming, he whispered, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

He coughed and spat bloody phlegm and didn't say anything else.

After a moment, she asked, "When you turn human ... how are you different?"

"I'm less angry." He met her eyes, with a bit of chagrin in his expression. "Calmer. Less likely to fly off the handle. Kagome says I'm a sweetheart when I'm human. The demon gives me an edge. Mind, I like the edge and I'm not putting myself down."

"So it's an emotional difference."

"Mostly." He was still scowling.

"So if strong emotions make you a demon -- would warm-fuzzy emotions make you turn human?"

"What are you going to do, sing Kumbaya at me?" He shot her a deadly glare. He apparently was less than thrilled by this whole line of discussion.

"Inuyasha, it may be our only chance for getting out of here."

He exhaled a deep, ragged breath. "Buffy, I am vulnerable as a human."

"I'll protect you."

"That," Inuyasha said sourly, "is generally my line."

"That's because you are a medieval bastard who was born a couple of centuries before women's lib." She reached out and shoved his shoulder a bit, a friendly, teasing gesture that came automatically. "You can do this. And you can trust me, too. I will protect you."

"I'm worried about Kagome," he said, finally, and slowly. "I can't protect her if I'm here. We need to get out of here. By the time we get back to the hotel, I might be demon again."

He would do it not for himself -- or for herself, Buffy realized -- but he would become human for the woman he loved more than anything else in the world. He would do it for the woman whose name he screamed in the throes of agony, for the woman who had promised to marry him; for the woman who'd crossed both centuries of time and entire continents to be by his side. The two of them were a team -- two halves of a whole.

She got that, now. And she suddenly felt ashamed that she had tried to recruit Kagome only, resisting Inuyasha's presence. Had Kagome accepted her request, Inuyasha would have been frantic with worry. And she had a suspicion that Kagome would have been lost without him.

I'll take care of him for you, Kagome, she silently vowed. I'll get him back to you safe and sound.

She suggested quietly, "You let go of the anger you felt towards me. Perhaps if you let go of everything else ..."

He was an angry man. She recognized that; nobody really disputed it. He had a hot temper and old issues and there was fury at the world lurking just below surface of his consciousness.

"The problem is, I have to mean it." Inuyasha said, then shook his head. "And letting go of the anger, that's not the answer. Humans get mad all the time."

He sat crosslegged, after pulling Tessaiga into his lap. He stroked the naked blade with one clawed hand -- the one that had been so badly burned, and was now nearly healed. His white hair, streaked and matted with blood and worse, tumbled in a tangled mess around his face when he bowed his head over the magic sword.

And suddenly ... after two or three minutes of Inuyasha sitting in silence and doing nothing visible ... his features shifted.

She'd seen him human before, of course, but still, it was a shock. His eyes were brown now, and his hair turned glossy black before her eyes. He blinked at her. Hoarsely, he whispered, "It worked."

"How?"

"I ... youkai don't trust, Buffy. They don't allow themselves to be vulnerable. They don't love -- not in the way that humans love. They do not attach to people in the way that humans attach. They don't sacrifice themselves for others."

"Shippou does," she said, quietly, disputing his point.

He snorted, sounding very much like himself as he climbed to his feet. "Shippou's the exception that proves the rule and the twerp was raised by humans."

She could argue all of his points with examples of demons she'd known who weren't bad guys. Spike came to mind, even pre-soul. Spike, who'd let Glory beat him to a pulp; Spike, who'd gotten a soul for her; Spike, who had saved her ass a thousand times over.

On the other hand, whatever he'd done had worked for him. Perhaps it wasn't a cosmic truth he'd discovered, but just an individual truth for this particular half-youkai man.

He added, in a rough whisper, "I decided not just to forgive you, but to put my trust in you. And I decided to do it because I will do anything for Kagome, including making myself this damn vulnerable. I need to get back to her." A twisted grin split his lips. "Kagome's going to be vastly amused by this. Kikyou would laugh her ass off that I figured out how to purify myself and we never even needed the damn jewel in the first place."

"Jewel? Oh, the shikon jewel."

"I will have to tell you the whole story later. Your books tell some of it, but they're not complete. Kaede didn't know everything." His tone, despite the hoarseness of his voice, was light, as if he planned to invite her over for coffee someday soon.

Hopefully not that truly awful instant crap he'd served two days ago.

Inuyasha handed her Tessaiga and its scabbard -- she realized as she accepted it that she wouldn't be able to take the sword through the ward without damage to it. He then stepped calmly through the doorway, and disappeared around the corner. After a very short moment, he returned with a bit of metal from the rack he'd earlier chucked out of the room. He started chipping at the rune. While she waited impatiently, she hung the sword on her belt.

Buffy knew when enough of the mark had been destroyed -- a certain sense of pressure lifted. She darted through the door, and caught him just as the bracelet fired again and pain overwhelmed him.

He choked, his voice too far gone to scream. She caught him as he collapsed, and hoisted him up over her shoulder, and then started running down the stairs even as he sobbed in agony. Buffy wasn't entirely sure where she was going to go, though finding the hitokiri was a good starting point. And she wanted to do it quickly; she wasn't sure how much agony human Inuyasha could take.

This time, she'd just kill the damn vampire at the first opportunity, after making him release Inuyasha from the bracelet.


	14. Chapter 14

Unseelie # 14

Inuyasha actually weighed less than she would have guessed. His intensity and hyperactivity made him look bigger than he was. She would have sworn he was close to six feet tall and two hundred pounds until she hefted him up. She had always thought of him as tall and he wasn't. If anything, he was a little less than average height when compared to modern Americans.

He weighed maybe a hundred and fifty, and she was guessing he stood five foot six, five foot seven. Shorter than Xander by a couple of inches, and she'd never even noticed that. He was a couple inches taller than she was at most -- when she picked him up, she discovered he was skin and bone and wiry muscles, plus lots of hair -- scrawny, really. She had to gather his hair up and throw it over her shoulder to keep from stepping on it. His hair was a heavy mass of thick silken locks. Why was it that guys always got the good hair?

It was amazing how someone so small could wreak such havoc in a fight.

By the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, he was coming around. She set him back on his feet when he demanded to be put "fucking put down," and then she started to unhook Tessaiga from her belt.

"You know how to use a sword, right?" Inuyasha didn't make a move to take his treasured blade from her hands, surprising her. He stood with his arms folded and a wary look in his eyes that probably didn't have anything to do with her. He was very vulnerable, and he knew it. His fighting style depended on brute strength, and now he didn't have any.

"I know enough." She had done a fair amount of training with various edged weapons -- and her Slayer strength and reflexes made use of a blade almost instinctive.

"Hold on to it." Inuyasha shook his head vigorously. "I can't wield it as I am, and if it doesn't activate it could break in a fight. There's nobody left alive who could fix it."

"Oh." She hesitated. The sword was so very important to him; he wasn't kidding about deciding to trust her. But he was right that she should use it -- she could already sense that the sword was responding to her. Her Slayer abilities included a certain sensitivity to magic. "Okay."

He glanced around the great hall. The trolls were gone, and the remnants of the meal remained on the floor. She guessed that the vampire had ordered his men away, so as to avoid more of them being killed. Good minions being so hard to replace, and all that. Inuyasha pointed at one of the doors. "They brought us in through an entrance this way."

He had been conscious when they'd been captured, she recalled -- though likely playing dead. Since he knew the way out, she gestured, "After you."

He rubbed his wrist, perhaps anticipating another round of agony. "How long was I unconscious?"

"A minute or two."

"So I have about twelve or thirteen minutes until this thing activates again. Let's go. If we can get back inside the hotel, I'm sure Kagome can get this off of me. I'm can't take another ..."

"You two are persistent as hell." A cool voice purred behind them.

It was the hitokiri. Buffy turned, dropping her hand down to draw Tessaiga. The hilt pulsed in her hand in apparent acknowledgment of the impending fight. "Stay behind me," she told Inuyasha. "I keep my promises."

"Oh, don't worry." He sounded a little bit bitter. "He's all yours. -- Buffy, be careful."

The hitokiri had a new sword in his hand -- one that was suspiciously fancy looking. Buffy guessed this one would not be broken so easily as the last.

"You're going down, pretty boy," Buffy promised him. She pulled the sword from the sheath. As she did, it flared.

It was like holding onto a nuclear reactor of raw power. What had been a dull, battered old blade was suddenly alive with energy. It transformed in her hand to its full glory -- a katana three times the usual size, glowing, wildly powerful. She was surprised by how well balanced it was, and how light it felt -- it seemed to be a living thing in her hands.

"Hey, it worked!" Inuyasha crowed behind her. "Get 'im, Buffy!"

She ignored that. If she wanted to stay alive in this fight, she'd need to use every skill she'd ever learned. She wasn't bad with a sword, and her reflexes were superhuman, but the hitokiri was significantly better trained. And Tessaiga was an unfamiliar weapon. She waited for him to make the first move, schooling herself to patience.

She didn't have to wait long -- in a swift rush so fast she almost couldn't see him coming, he darted towards her. Tessaiga seemed to move of its own accord to block that blow; it was as light as a feather in her hand. She batted the vampire's sword aside and kicked at his hand with her foot, just as Tessaiga flashed green and gold.

A burst of power threw the vampire into a wall. He lost his weapon, and hit the wall hard enough to stun him.

"Hey! Nice job!" Inuyasha, as a cheerleader, was somewhat disconcerting. Inuyasha was grinning, an expression that normally would have bared his fangs. Now he just flashed her an even row of perfect white teeth.

After a somewhat alarmed look at Inuyasha, she walked over to the hitokiri, kicked his sword away under the table, and yanked him to his feet. She wasn't gentle when she slammed him face-first into the wall. "You might be a good swordsman, but you're no match for good old fashion magic. Tell me how to get the bracelet off Inuyasha."

"My bracelet ... it's the master control." The vampire gasped, as she leaned on him hard enough to bend his ribs. Up close, he smelled as bad as he looked -- he reeked of body odor and old blood and dirty clothing, with a tang of smoke added to the mix.

She peered at the bracelet after swallowing hard to fight a nauseous reaction to his stench. It was wrapped tightly around his slim wrist; the grime on his skin was worn away by interaction of metal and vampire sweat. "This comes off?"

"Yes. Take it off me."

She reached to remove it, grabbing his wrist and looking for a clasp. She spotted a tiny latch on the bracelet and tried to pry it open. Light exploded and the next thing she knew she was flying through the air. She hit Inuyasha and they both went sprawling. Tessaiga clattered across the floor until it smacked into a wall, where it reverted back to a dull and battered old blade.

The vampire laughed. Then, with a sneer in his voice, he said, "You're so naive, Buffy."

"Yeah, but you're dead!" It wasn't exactly the most original thing in the world to say, but she leaped for the sword, and managed to reach it before the vampire could grab her. She rolled over and shouted, "Kaze no ala kazaaaam!" and pointed Tessaiga at the vampire.

Precisely nothing happened, except that Inuyasha made a startled choking noise behind her. She swore and scrambled to her feet and swung a killing blow at the vampire -- who was far faster than she was, and who ducked under the strike, and caught her in the wrist with his elbow. Her hand spasmed and she dropped the sword as he simultaneously lunged for her throat with his fangs bared.

She flung and arm up and he bit her wrist, not her neck. The hitokiri pinned her down, however -- he weighed less than she did, but he made good use of what mass he did have by planted his knee in her gut and holding her wrists with his hands. She couldn't get leverage to throw him off. And now he was reaching for her throat ... she was going to die.

Inuyasha swung a chair at the hitokiri. He missed -- the man made another one of those impossibly agile leaps out of the way -- but Buffy was free.

"Thanks," she gasped, as she picked the sword back up.

"If you're going to use my attacks," Inuyasha said with a sneer, "Get them right -- look out!"

She'd looked away from the vampire and he was back, moving with blinding speed. She flung her hand up with the hilt of the sword gripped in it and his teeth collided with her fist. She then jerked her knee up, catching him between the legs so hard he was lifted off the ground. And when he doubled over with a startled ooooooffff of exhaled air, she chopped him in the back of the head so hard he went down with a thud and stayed down. Even vampires, if hit hard enough, could be knocked out. And nobody ever expected a knee o' doom in the middle of a sword fight.

Buffy shook her fingers out -- she'd laid into him so hard that her fingers were tingling, and her knuckles were gashed open. "If he had any supernatural abilities beyond normal vampire," she said, "I'd be dead right now."

"You really know how to fight," Inuyasha responded with respect. He was also standing funny -- sort've protectively hunched. And he looked a bit pale. She would have laughed if she hadn't been winded by the fight. Men!

"I've been doing this since I was fifteen." She was surprised that he was impressed by her fighting abilities. He was engaged to a Slayer, after all. She bent over, grabbed the vampire by his hair, and yanked his unconscious body upright. "You got anything to tie him up with?"

Inuyasha glanced around the room and spotted draperies in front of a window -- the hall had windows, but the drapes were all pulled tight across the glass, rendering the room suitably gloomy for an evil elf's lair. Inuyasha reached up, grabbed a rope pull for the drapes, and yanked with all his might on it. The rope came down on the third tug, along with a couple of spiders and quite a bit of dust.

"Aaauuugh!" Inuyasha stamped on the spiders.

"Big bad half demon's scared of bugs?" Buffy couldn't resist teasing him.

"I nearly died of a spider bite once, woman," he said, irritably. "And I'm vulnerable in this form. So excuuuuuuse me for being damn paranoid." He inspected the bare, callused sole of one foot. "Though that spider was a good bit bigger than these."

Vampire now thoroughly trussed up, Buffy slung him over her shoulder. "Let's get out of here. Tell me, what did I do wrong with the sword early?"

He smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Yeah, I would. Pretty boy here is easy enough to deal with ..."

"You call that easy?" He gave her an incredulous look. "He about bit your head off!"

Buffy snorted. "I took out a Hell God once."

"... Okay, point. All in a day's work, huh?" He fell into step beside her, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of the tattered and filthy remnants of his jeans. If her own filth was to the level of Inuyasha's, she was glad she didn't have a mirror to look in. Because, eww.

Well, witty reportoire always worked to make her feel better. She tossed her hair back and said, "No, usually, they're a lot bigger and a lot slower and dumber."

"That wasn't an insult against me, was it?" Now his look was suspicious. He stared at her from beneath his begrimed bangs. He had dirt and blood smeared on his cheeks. It was amazing how growly he could sound even as a human. Kagome swore he was nicer as a man than he was as a hanyou; Buffy wasn't seeing it.

"Hardly." Buffy was surprised he'd even think that she was making a dig at him. At the moment, she was liking him. He grew on you, particularly in the middle of enemy territory, when he was acting like a true hero. "You're not stupid. Oh, I figured you were in the beginning, when we first met. But I think we both know the truth. You're okay, Inuyasha. And you're not stupid."

He flashed her a smile. "Took you long enough to figure that out, woman."

"Though you are an illiterate, hot-tempered asshole. I'll grant you ..."

"Hey!" He protested. "I can read. I do it for fun, bitch."

"What, manga?" She'd clearly struck a nerve. Good. It would keep her mind off the mess they were in. "And bitch? Call me that again and I'll feed you soap."

"I like to read." He scowled at her. "I'm not stupid."

"You just speak in short sentences using small words, yeah, yeah."

He snorted, and then asked her -- in a perfect upper-crust British accent -- "Would you prefer that I talk in literate, even erudite, sentences in a manner befitting a properly educated gentleman?"

She was so shocked she stopped short and stared at him. He'd just done a pitch-perfect imitation of Giles at his stuffiest, even losting his customary growl. Without the deep, resonant tones in his words he sounded distinctly different.

Inuyasha scratched himself in a spot that gentlemen didn't normally scratch in front of ladies, and said in his normal voice, "Thing is? I'm no gentleman. And I'm not going to put on no fucking airs for no fucking buddy. Got that? Yeah? Good."

"Yeah, got it."

"Kagome's got light years more brains than me." Inuyasha continued walking towards the exit. She shifted her armful of stinky unconscious vampire and followed him. "Which is okay. I got enough to function with. That's what matters."

They made it to the entrance to the keep before the bracelet fired again. With a grunt, Inuyasha went down and stayed down -- his eyes rolled back in his head and he quivered and shook but was clearly, blessedly, passed out. He didn't have anywhere near the stamina as a human as he did as a hanyou. This was probably a good thing, at least in this specific instance.

"That'll kill him eventually. His heart will stop. Humans weren't meant to take that level of pain."

It was the vampire, who was trussed up and lying at her feet. He'd woken finally.

"You could release him." She turned around.

"What, and spoil all the entertainment in watching you two grovel? What are you going to do when you get to the hotel?" The vampire rolled his eyes.

"Oh, I have plans." Buffy toed the vampire. First she needed to get back into the hotel. Then she needed to see what sorts of supplies Angel and Willow had on hand. However, she had a bit of a idea that might actually turn into a plan.

--

Kagome was keeping watch when the barrier beyond the hotel's front door flared with brilliant red light. Buffy's voice echoed through the room, "... a la kazaaaaam!"

Much to Kagome's shock, Buffy lunged through a sudden opening in the barrier. She was carrying Tessaiga in one hand, and had a red-haired figure thrown over her shoulder. Kagome's heart leaped into her throat in instinctive fear -- there were a lot of ways Inuyasha could be parted from his sword, but none of them were very good.

Slayers are part demon. Of course she can use the sword. Why didn't I think of that before? 

To her relief, however, a very human Inuyasha followed on her heels just as the doorway through the barrier closed. He was filthy, bloody, battered and bruised, but blessedly alive. Kagome demanded, as Buffy dropped the vampire on the ground, "Anything coming after you?"

"Not immediately." Buffy sounded tired.

"Good." And then she turned to Inuyasha and tackled him with a squeal of relief. "Inuyashaaaaa!"

He folded his arms around her and held her close. He squeezed her so hard her ribs hurt. "I was worried about you," he whispered.

"Yeah, me too. You got purified? How the hell did you get purified?"

"Sort've." He nuzzled her neck. Had they been alone, she suspected he would have thrown her down and made love to her until they were both limp with exhaustion. Cryptically, he answered, "This old dog learned a new trick."

"Will wonders never cease." She kissed him, to take the sting out of her teasing words. There weren't any real words to describe the relief she felt to see him alive. So she didn't try to express herself in any way other than by wrapping her arms around his waist and engaging in a very undignified, very improper public display of affection. Once upon a time she'd have blushed to her toes to be seen kissing Inuyasha like this ... well, a couple years in America, and a several months as his girlfriend, had changed her outlook on a lot of things! Then, when they came up for air she asked, "Are you cursed or will you turn back on your own?"

"Buffy!" Willow's shout of greeting made them both look up, before he could answer her. Inuyasha didn't let go of her, however; his arms remained locked around her. He was sometimes like this after a close call. She knew she was his rock, the center of his universe, and she leaned into his arms. He needed the physical contact for a bit longer. Whatever had happened on the other side of the barrier must have been pretty bad, if Buffy was wielding Tessaiga and her hanyou was human!

"Wil, oh, good. I got a couple jobs for you -- first, re-demon Inuyasha, will you? Right now."

Priorities, Kagome realized. Buffy was a lot smarter than she seemed at first impression, and one of her first priorities would be to restore Inuyasha -- and his fighting abilities -- to hanyou form.

Kagome felt Inuyasha breath a soft sigh of relief. He had issues with vulnerability all around; he didn't trust these people, she knew, and it would be too easy for somebody to get physical with him when he didn't have his powers to defend himself. Xander could probably take out the human Inuyasha.

Absently, she thought, I really should work with him on hand-to-hand as a human. There's plenty of mortal humans who can kick ass and take names. He was athletic even as a human; he needed to learn to some fighting styles that didn't involve brute strength, fangs, and teeth and a whopping powerful sword.

"Oh! Oh, sure. I can do that." Willow nodded as she came down the stairs. She snapped a quick incantation off in latin. "That's easy-peasy."

Inuyasha gasped as the magic hit him, and threw his head back and snarled. Kagome didn't let go -- there was nothing that Inuyasha could do that could scare her -- and after a second, his hair white once more, his eyes amber, and his claws and fangs back. He was himself again and he let out a deep sigh of relief. "That's more like it. Thank you, Buffy. Willow."

"Not a problem." Buffy's response was casual, but Inuyasha's absent gratitude raised Kagome's eyebrows -- and her curiosity. Inuyasha seldom thanked anyone, and never someone he didn't like. Willow's name had been tacked on as an afterthought, but his 'thank you' to Buffy had been completely genuine.

"It's about time. Kagome ..." he started to say something to her. Whatever comment he meant to make was lost in a strangled cry. He went down hard, dragging her with him, clawed hands clenching painfully around her upper arms. She turned a betrayed look to Willow and demanded, "What did you do to him!"

Inuyasha clung to her. He was shaking. Worse, she could feel his heart racing through the his rib cage, and his breath came in quick, short puffs.

"I didn't do anything!" Willow sounded hurt.

"Willow didn't do it." Inuyasha gasped. "Damn vampire. Get it off!"

He thrust his wrist towards her, displaying a golden bracelet. When she cautiously touched the bracelet it tried to zap her with an evil aura. Instinctively, she blocked it with a burst of purification energy. The thing was positively malignant, and, now that she turned her attention to it, she could sense it must be causing Inuyasha terrible agony.

"Please. Please. Please. Kagome, make it stop. Please make it stop."

His begging was alarming to her. Inuyasha didn't beg. It was totally out of character for him to even acknowledge pain. With a growled oath she purified the damned thing. It clicked open, a hidden hinge revealed, and she ripped it off his wrist and threw it hard against the wall. It sparked on contact and then fell to the ground where it lay, occasionally making a vaguely electrical noise.

Inuyasha melted into her arms, eyes closing. He'd passed out. She quickly checked his pulse, which was slowing down to a normal rate even as she touched his throat. Then she cradled him in her arms, ignoring various stinks that had to be far more offensive to his sensitive nose than to hers, and demanded of Buffy, "What the hell happened to you two?"

Buffy didn't immediately acknowledge Kagome's question, to her frustration. Instead, she thrust her captive vampire into Spike's care with a quick, "Be careful. He's a bit of a bad ass."

Spike regarded the problem for a moment, then thumped the red-haired vampire over the head with his fist. The hitokiri slumped unconscious. "Now he's less of a bad ass. Why are we not staking him, luv?"

"Because he's an important minion and knows important stuff." Buffy sighed. "And now I have to wait for him to wake up to get information out of him."

"Buffy," Kagome interrupted, patience exhausted, "Why the hell is my hanyou half dead?"

"Because he chose to suffer pretty nasty levels of pain rather than to kill me." Buffy's explanation was delivered with a toss of her head, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "And, ewww. I need a bath. Then I need an orb of Thesu-vesuvius-whatsit."

Willow supplied, somewhat hesitantly, "Thesulah?"

"Buffy, I need more information than that. What happened to Inuyasha?" Kagome was ready to strangle her.

"Yeah, that, Willow." Buffy frowned at Kagome, "Inuyasha's tough. He'll be okay. He'll come around in a minute or two."

"I'm pretty sure Angel's soul is present and accounted for right now, given that he's not trying to kill everyone." Spike said, with a bit of a smirk. Kagome's felt slightly dizzy as she tried to track the conversation. What the heck did Angel's soul have to do with anything they were discussing now? Spike continued, "Though I bet you could use the orb to take his soul away and then we sic Angelus on the Unseelie. Ooh! That'd be bloody entertaining."

Kagome decided she had no clue what that banter was about, and Buffy was obviously distracted, so she turned her attention to her fiance. She shook Inuyasha gently, trying to rouse him. He took a deep, ragged breath. His eyelids fluttered, revealing slits of amber, and he groaned. Finally, everyone fall fell silent, waiting for him to wake up. Without opening his eyes, he muttered, "Kagome, next time Buffy asks us to help out, just say no."

Buffy's voice held a grin that Kagome didn't even need to look up to see. "'Just say no' went out of style in the 1980's, Rover."

He opened one eye. "Are you even old enough to remember Nancy Reagan? -- And I'll be fine." He opened the other eye and sat up, pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead for a moment, then added, "You've a cruel streak, woman."

"Muah?" Buffy's look was totally -- and falsely -- innocent.

"I'd tend to agree with that," Spike said. "It's why I love her."

"Masochism. It's what Spike does best." Xander teased him, as he descended the stairs, with Angel following after him.

"Buffy," Angel let out a heartfelt sigh of relief. "Thank God you're okay."

Ignoring everyone else, Angel pulled her into a hug. His low murmur of, "I was worried you'd get hurt ..." was barely audible.

"Hey! Hands off my girl!" Spike protested, sounding outright angry. Then he muttered, fists balled at his side, "The bastard never understood boundaries."

Inuyasha said in Japanese to Kagome, with his arms folded and a smirk on his face, "Those two and Buffy really need to have a good threesome and get it out of their system."

Andrew -- the others were arriving now, Andrew among them -- replied with a snicker to Inuyasha from across the room, "Problem with that is that Angel and Spike could never agree on who'd do Buffy first."

"So they'd need to be creative about sharing." Inuyasha actually sounded crabby when he said that. Kagome promptly blushed to the roots of her hair, and swatted him.

Andrew giggled.

Still cranky, Inuyasha demanded, "What? It's true."

"Inuyasha!" She hit him again. "Don't make me Sit you for being crude!"

"Sometimes, I forget you're only twenty." He scowled at her. Then, in a voice that continued to border on pissed, he again turned his attention to Willow. "Willow, that's dark magic that Buffy's proposing."

"I've done it before." She sounded defensive.

"And we all know how well that went." Xander's frowny face matched Inuyasha's perfectly. Kagome figured Inuyasha's mood was due to embarassment at being vulnerable in front of the others, but she didn't know why Xander was not thrilled with whatever Buffy had alluded to. An Orb of Thesulah wasn't anything Kagome was familiar with -- she was a miko, not a traditional witch.

"Xander, I don't think we have a choice." Buffy extricated herself from Angel's hug and turned her attention briefly at Spike. "Stop pouting, Spike. It's not cute. You'll get your smoochies later. -- Wil, I wouldn't ask, but I think our back's to the wall here. They've transported the hotel into another dimension. It's not Earth out there; it's the middle of an alien battlefield. With, like, yucky demons instead of soldier. That vampire's an important minion and if we can bring him over to our side, we might not only get out of this with our lives, but ahead of the game."

"We're going to die here if we can't break the barrier." Willow nodded. "I can do it. Do we have an Orb?"

"On my desk." Angel gestured vaguely at his office. "I've been using it as a paperweight."

Kagome had no idea why this comment provoked mild laughter from both Willow and Xander, and a roll of the eyes from Buffy. The Slayer continued, "Wil. Do we have everything else you need?"

"Yeah, I think so. Angel's got quite a few supplies in the basement."

"Good. Get things ready. I'm going to go take a shower and get this ick off me -- I swear, I'm never going to use the phrase finger food again! -- Inuyasha, if you want a shower, do it now too."

Inuyasha nodded. His crabby expression eased. Belatedly, Kagome realized he might have been perturbed by his own stink, as well. "Is there water?"

"Tank on the roof." Spike glanced upwards. "Go easy on it, but there should be a few thousand gallons there, so we're good for awhile. It's cold, though, without power."

"Soap?" Inuyasha grunted. Kagome suspected Inuyasha would have taken a bath in icewater at this point.

"Third floor maid's closet." Angel was returning with a glass globe in one hand. "Place used to be a hotel. They left enough of those little bottles of shampoo behind for an army."

With total, and heartfelt sincerity, Inuyasha said, "Thank you." Then he grabbed Kagome by the hand and hurried off towards the stairs, pausing only to wrest a flashlight out of Andrew's startled grasp.


	15. Chapter 15

Unseelie # 15

Inuyasha didn't let go of her hand until they'd reached a third-floor hotel room by way of a detour to collect shampoo. He pushed the room open and flicked his light around, revealing that there was a mattress on the floor, more mattresses piled against the wall, some broken chairs under the window, bedspreads in a heap tumbling out of a closet, and glowing runes-of-warding on the window glass.

They'd already established that the bad guys could break through Willow's runes.

Kagome viewed the runes warily for several minutes, wishing she knew enough to reinforce them. While she was staring at them, Inuyasha stepped into the bathroom. She heard the shower start.

Shaking her head at his singleminded interest in getting clean, she finally and reluctantly turned away from the window and pushed the hotel room door shut. It was so dark that Inuyasha could probably walk around in his altogether and nobody would notice, but privacy mattered to her. Particularly since she had every intention of joining him in that shower. Though for all she knew, something wicked nasty was going to come through that glass while she was butt naked and had shampoo in her hair, rendering the point of shutting the door moot.

And it amazed her the number of demons who got googly-eyed when they same a naked human female, even though their biology rendered them incompatible.

Finally, resolving not to think about enemy attacks for the short period it would take both of them to clean up, she kicked off her filthy jeans and t-shirt and stepped into the bathroom. Inuyasha's flashlight was on a chipped and battered vanity, pointed upwards at the ceiling. It lent a dim orange light to the room; the batteries were about dead. Even as she pushed the faded shower curtain open it flickered, though it wasn't quite to the point of going out.

Inuyasha was standing with his face turned up to a hard stream of lukewarm water. In the low light he looked like an alabaster god -- pale skin and white hair, and filth slicking off to reveal his flawless body under the hard spray of water. There wasn't a mark on him; even his charred hand was entirely healed now. With his hair wet and plastered to his skull, she could see the not-quite-human shape of his skull more clearly. He had his ears flattened to keep water out of them, but they were still quite prominent without the body of his hair to hide them.

Then she spotted the stitches in his arm from the gash only a day ago. That injury was long repaired without a scar. She retreated to her jeans, where she retrieved a pocket knife. Useful things, pocket knives -- she'd started carrying one five years and five centuries ago.

Inuyasha glanced at her briefly when she touched his arm, then realized her intention and held still while she cut the sutures and pulled them free with her fingernail. The stitches came out easily, and she let the water wash the little curled bits of black threads down the drain.

"I'll do your hair," he offered, when she was done. He'd already scrubbed his own mane clean -- she suspected, by the litter of four or five tiny bottles of shampoo in the bottom of the tub, he'd washed it through more than once. There had been dried blood crusted in it, and worse things.

"Sure."

His claws were heaven against her scalp as he worked the shampoo through. He kneaded her hair with just the right amount of pressure, making her melt against the shower wall as he worked. It felt so good to be clean.

When they'd both satisfied the urge to scrub, he stepped out and shook like a dog -- Kagome winced at the water that went flying, and, in lieu of a towel, threw comforter from the pile of bedclothes at him. "Don't be such a barbarian."

She bent over to pick up her regrettably still-dirty jeans when Inuyasha made a sudden move behind her. "Kagome ..." he said, in a strangled voice, as he caught her and half carried, half pushed her towards the mattress on the floor. They tumbled onto it, and he pinned her down and pressed his mouth to hers with urgent, desperate hunger.

He didn't say anything beyond the single use of her name in the beginning. He just claimed her, first kissing her and then shoving her knees back with his hands, flipping her feet over his shoulders, and thrusting into her. He was almost like an animal -- wordless, fierce, singleminded. He wasn't gentle. He wasn't kind. He wasn't anything but raw power and ferocity.

She could have stopped it at any time. A quick swipe with her miko powers or a firm shove so he wasn't over the top of her and a Sit, boy! and it would have been finished. But she knew he needed this. She knew he needed to know deep down that she wouldn't reject him, not even when he was at his worst.

This was was about affirmation, and trust. This was about confirming that she accepted him for what he was, even if sometimes he was rude and crude and rough and obnoxious . It was confirmation that she accepted the totality of what he was; that she loved all of him.

He would not have been able to put communicate those feelings in any sort of coherent fashion ... but she understood him.

It hurt at first, the way he shoved into her without preparation or much warning, and with force and depth and speed, but then the pain turned to pleasure as he kept hitting the right spots just perfectly, and when he came she shuddered with him and they both cried out together. Breathing hard, he flopped beside her and draped an arm over her ribs. Slowly, his breath slowed even as her heart rate did. He was silent, still without words, for long minutes.

"They're going to wonder where we are," she said, finally.

"Kagome, I'm a monster."

She thought at first he was apologizing, Inuyasha-style, for the rough sex. She'd be sore later -- and he'd gripped her thighs so tightly he'd left bruises -- but she hadn't minded. Hell, she'd initiated it by joining him the shower, expecting that he might do this with her after. He had not been in a tender, sensual mood. She knew him well enough to know what she was getting into, and had truthfully wanted it herself. There was something to be said for being grabbed and thoroughly fucked by a man you loved more than life itself. She snorted. "You don't hear me complaining, do you?"

"I hurt." His grip on her tightened. "Don't you leave me, ever."

"Inuyasha ..." she stretched up and kissed him and let her actions tell him just how unlikely that was.

After a moment, however, he pulled away and wrapped his arms around her and clung to her. "I ... hurt, Kagome. Things happened. With Buffy."

"She didn't hit on you, did she? Or hit you?" Either was possible, Kagome figured.

"No." His grip tightened around her, like he never wanted to let go. "The vampire -- the bracelet. It was spelled so if I killed her the pain would stop. 'Least, that's what the vampire said."

"Oh, Gods." She'd seen Inuyasha hurting before, but never anything like that. The bracelet had scared her. This was a man who could survive being impaled, and still fight on afterwards. Inuyasha rarely acknowledged any sort of hurt. And he'd passed out from the agony.

"Didn't want to." Inuyasha sounded grouchy, though she knew he was mostly just being defensive. He didn't like talking about his feelings. Still, he huffed a sigh and explained, "But ... Kagome, it was so bad. And she could have killed me. She was so scared of me. I could smell it. I think that's what the vampire planned -- one of us would kill the other, and he didn't care who lived. He was just being evil."

She smoothed his damp hair back. "It's over."

"I wanted you there. You could have made it stop. Knew that." He nuzzled her neck, a lot gentler now. He needed to shave; his cheeks were sandpaper rough against her skin. "You weren't there."

"I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault. Buffy ... held me. Let me know I wasn't alone. She was terrified of me, but she cared." He ran a hand down Kagome's side, claws lightly, sensually, trailing over her naked ribs. It would have tickled if she wasn't so relaxed in his arms. "I ... I wanted to kill her. To make it stop. But I couldn't. Because she cared. I was so angry at her. Have been, for a long time. I had to let it go. Or I would have killed her. Killing her would have been wrong."

He exhaled raggedly. "I ... I had to let the anger go. At her. Forgive her. Had to do it. Or I'd have killed her. Had to mean it. Did it. Didn't think I ever could, but I did."

"Oh."

"It was that or kill her."

"Inuyasha," she said quietly, "I'm proud of you."

She expected that pronouncement to be met with an embarrassed keh and perhaps a small smile -- though she couldn't see his expression in the dark room, just the faint glow of his white hair. The flashlight in the bathroom was growing ever dimmer.

After a moment, however, he said miserably, "I hurt."

She knew purely by his tone of voice that he was not talking about physical pain.

"Shhh. It's okay."

"No. It's not." He hugged her, suddenly, arm sliding across her chest, face buried in her shoulder. "Damnit. If it weren't for you, I would have no reason to exist. I'm a monster."

"Shhh."

"Don't leave me." He clung to her, claws digging into her shoulder with almost, but not quite, enough force to hurt. "I'd go crazy without you, Kagome. Don't leave me."

"Shh." Now was probably not the time to remind him of the difference in their expected lifespans, and the fact that Slayers tended to have even more abbreviated lives than usual for humans. "I'm not going to."

"Promise?"

"I promise I'll spend the rest of my life with you, Inuyasha."

It was an easy oath to take. She couldn't imagine a world without him in it. There were times she wanted to strangle him, but she couldn't imagine a life without him as her other half.

He was silent, then, and she thought perhaps he was done. He lay there, clinging to her in the dark, for a long moment. She considered initiating another round of sex -- he'd be gentler now, tender and thoughtful. But before she could slide a hand down his length and touch him in ways guaranteed to spark his interest, he started talking again. "I can't find the words Kagome. I hurt. I can't ... I can't ..."

She heard his frustration, and understood. He -- literally -- didn't know what words to use. He didn't talk about his feelings often, and was hunting to find the right descriptions. She said quietly, "The girls. The ones you killed. You're thinking about them?"

He nodded, shakily. She saw his the silhouette of his head bob, and felt the brush of his chin against her shoulder.

"If you're not angry at Buffy anymore, then who do you blame?" She prompted him, well knowing the answer he would give..

His ragged sigh was the only confirmation she needed that her guess was right. Without Buffy to turn his anger towards, he was focusing it inward. And there was blame there. He'd killed humans -- in self defense, yes, but his fighting ability was decidedly unequal to theirs. He could have reacted with more restraint, but he'd let anger and grief for Amelia fuel the bloodshed.

"Shh." She held him close.

At that instant, the flashlight finally faded out, plunging the room into complete darkness. In the darkness, he said, "I learned something, when I was with Buffy. I let the anger go ... all of it ... I allowed myself to trust ... and I became human. I needed to do it to survive. And survival was more important than the anger, even anger at my own self. Survival for myself. Survival for Buffy, who was my enemy. Survival for you. I had to live for you. I had to live because I wanted you."

The pain in his words made her want to cry.

"The demon in me is angry and that makes him strong. If I let the anger go, the demon becomes weak and I can force it out by sheer will, and then I become human. Anger is part of who I am, Buffy. Yet anger bred a monster who killed all those little girls."

She stroked his hair, and let him talk, as he finally found the words he needed to say. "I hurt, Kagome. My heart hurts. I don't want to be a monster. And now I know how to let it go, to become mortal and human. But I can't, if I want to live. And I will not leave you. It's selfish, but I won't. I want you."

Again he sighed. And then he repeated, "I won't leave you. But I'm scared I'll kill again, and kill someone that shouldn't be killed. I could end it. I could rid the world of the monster that is me. I could become human and die a very old man, within a few days. But it would mean hurting you. You would grieve me. And if I died, I wouldn't have you. So ... so I think I'll hold on to the anger and hurt a little bit longer. Because it lets me stay with you."

"Oh." She truly didn't know what to say in response to all this.

He continued, putting more emotional words together in a few short minutes than he normally spoke in days. "Kagome, do you think all the people I've saved in my life are a fair exchange for the ones I've killed?"

"I don't know the answer to that, Inuyasha."

"Neither do I. I'm not a fucking philosopher. You're the one with the smarts." He stood up in the absolute darkness. Without his arms around her, she felt suddenly very alone. He was hurting so much, and there was absolutely nothing she could think to do or say to help him. She wanted find him in the darkness and hug him again, but his words stopped that impulse. "Hanako's coming. She has clean clothing."

She didn't ask which of his senses told him that the girl was coming their way, much less that someone had been thoughtful enough to find them outfits that weren't disgustingly dirty. Quite possibly, as keen as his ears were, he'd overheard a discussion somewhere else in the building.

"Inuyasha."

"Yeah?"

"I'm still proud of you. For what you did with Buffy."

"Keh." A pause. She heard him swallow audibly. Then he added, "Thanks."


	16. Chapter 16

Unseelie Chapter # 16

Inuyasha's hand was warm in hers, as he led her through the dark halls. He probably couldn't see much better than Kagome could, but his keen hearing and sense of smell let him navigate well enough. The dark, cold halls were eerily spooky and she stumbled over nothing as she trailed after him.

"Careful, stairs." He said -- then picked her up without warning and carried her down them. His arms were strong under her back and thighs, and his damp hair slid over her arms. In a lower voice he said, "I don't like their plan. Don't have better ideas, though."

"Mmm."

"Mucking about in things they shouldn't." His grumble was barely audible.

"Yeah, I know. There's a reason they call that spell dark magic -- poor guy'll have to deal with all the things he did without a soul. Without a conscience. That's gotta be awful."

"Feh. That's stupid logic."

"What do you mean?"

He set her down when they reached the second floor, however, and changed the subject to, "Be careful. There's a throw rug."

The others had gathered in the second floor library, which had once been a ball room. It was a large, spacious room -- and in the darkness, eerily spooky. The flickering candles lit at the points of a pentagram did little to dispel the darkness. Impenetrable shadows loomed over the scene, and the scents of sage, lavender, and something like burning meat did little to dispel the ominous atmosphere.

Kagome shut library the door behind them, at Buffy's terse instruction of, "You're the last; everyone else is keeping guard. Lock it. I don't want any interruptions."

"I changed the spell a little," Willow walked over and spoke to Buffy. "No happiness clause."

"Because he's going to be such a happy camper when we do this to him." Buffy rolled her eyes upwards.

Willow shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "Well, I didn't want it to be like a curse. I don't curse people anymore. Remember? When we're done he can live on with a soul. He'll probably thank us and stuff. Angel does. And Spike likes his soul."

"Right." Buffy said. "No cursy-Willow. And we like you that way."

The door opened at that minute, admitting Spike and Angel and the hitokiri between them. The vampire was thoroughly bound, ankles and feet, with duct tape. He also had a ball gag shoved in his mouth. Kagome eyed the gag and decided she didn't want to know who it belonged to -- it certainly didn't look like it was standard issue Slayer equipment. It had rabbit fur padding the straps, and an ornate silver clasp.

Spike was also nursing a bloody hand -- likely, the reason for the gag. The hitokiri was vamped out, forehead wrinkled, eyes blazing in anger, and snarls escaping from the corners of his mouth -- gag, or no.

"He bites," Spike complained, displaying his hand to the others. He'd wadded a rag around it, and blood soaked through the fabric. "I'm hungry enough as it is without springing a leak!"

"He's a vampire. Duh, he bites." Xander rolled his eyes at them from across the room.

Spike deposited the demon before Willow and Buffy with an unceremonious thump. Without hesitation or warning the hitokiri promptly lashed out with his bound feet with lightning speed, very nearly kneecapping Buffy -- she leaped over the strike at the last moment. On landing, she knocked Willow sprawling.

The hitokiri kept fighting despite the fact that he was trussed up like a chicken on a spit. He kicked a chair at Kagome, and then somehow lunged to his feet and dove headfirst at Inuyasha -- who didn't have time to react, so quick was the vampire's leap. The vampire twisted in mid air and caught Tessaiga's hilt with his bound hands, tearing it out of Inuyasha's sheath. Then, sword clutched behind him, he fell to the floor.

Kagome realized he intended to cut his feet free with it, even as the vampire did just that.

Suddenly, he was running, Tessaiga clutched in his still-bound hands behind him.

"I'm going to rip his head off," Inuyasha growled, lunging forward as if he intended to do just that. Buffy flung a hand up, and somewhat to Kagome's surprise, Inuyasha stopped short. He was snarling, however, and quivering. An osuwari was ready on Kagome's lips, but she didn't want to humiliate Inuyasha -- or render him vulnerable -- in the middle of a fight. However, he was doubly vulnerable without his sword. No matter what he did to convince her that he could handle himself now without Tessaiga in his hand ... she had deeply visceral memories of red-eyed rage, bloodshed and horror.

The vampire did something with his hands and the sword and the duct tape parted. Now he was armed, and free, and everyone -- including Inuyasha, when both Buffy and Kagome glared at him -- backed off, and surrounded the man. They didn't want him dead, just restrained!

Inuyasha looked furious. Worse, he was probably keenly embarrassed. Kagome winced, watching him. She had a suspicion that Tessaiga wouldn't hurt Inuyasha no matter who wielded it -- but she wasn't willing to bet that Inuyasha wouldn't dust the vampire. He was mad enough to not be thinking clearly. And he was not fond of vampires; he lumped them into the same mental category as all other nasty youkai that stole human bodies. And following plans? Not exactly Inuyasha's strong point -- not even an older, wiser, seven hundred year old Inuyasha. Not when he was this pissed and humiliated.

"I thought it was too easy to capture him, earlier," Buffy grumbled. She sounded only annoyed. Kagome hoped that Buffy wouldn't say anything snarky to Inuyasha about losing his weapon in a fight; Inuyasha was powerful and unstoppable in a freight-train sense when stopping, but his actual reflexes weren't much better than a normal human. What they were fighting, this strange vampire? Was way beyond 'normal human' in the way he moved.

Buffy either had the good sense to not bait Inuyasha, or somebody heard Kagome's silent prayers that the leader of the Slayers would have unusually good judgment. All Buffy said was, "Wil, do your magic."

Kagome realized that the vampire now had a chance to kill all of them and wondered if that had been his plan. He appeared to be good enough with a sword to do it. Had he allowed Buffy to capture him so that she would bring him into their midst?

Possible. The records on him indicated that he was a remarkably devious creature: amoral as all vampires were, but keenly intelligent and a brilliant tactician. Kavan had said that the Sidhe had been trying to kill him for decades, because he was such a dangerous commander in a fight.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Spell stuff." Willow turned to the pentagram and began to chant something, as the vampire spun and lunged at Xander. Xander, the weak link in the room, at least had the wisdom to shriek and dodge behind Hanako -- who had grabbed a chair and blocked a strike from Tessaiga with it. Kagome winced as ancient steel hit oak.

The chair splintered, and Hanako was left holding a wooden leg. Without hesitation, Hanako lit into the vampire with it. She deftly blocked a strike from the vampire -- dull steel made a crunching noise against wood even as Inuyasha took advantage of his distraction to try to grab him. The vampire dodged both of them with an overhead somersault.

Willow hadn't been idle; the Orb of Thesulah at the center of the pentagram was glowing a brilliant orange. Her voice rose in an appeal to the higher powers, even as the hitokiri vampire landed, spun on his toes, and lunged for Hanako.

Hanako blocked the strike again with the chair leg. "You idiot!" she shouted at the vampire in Japanese. "Don't you know this will help you? Why are you fighting us?"

The vampire disarmed Hanako of her chair leg. Inuyasha was now leaping for him, claws outstretched, even as Spike and Angel and Buffy were closing in as well. They weren't going to reach her in time, however -- Kagome saw it coming.

Sesshoumaru had said, Only once.

Shippou had said that Sango-now-Hanako had lived dozens of lives, always to die in battle. She was cursed, he said.

Kagome saw it coming.

She knew.

Hanako was going to die, in front of them. Armed only with a wooden chair leg, she was no match for a brilliant swordsman wielding even a dull, ancient sword. And now she had not even the chair leg. They would not reach her to save her.

She was going to die.

Time slowed.

She saw Hanako throw an arm up in what would be a futile gesture.

Saw the vampire's eyes flare with a light from within.

She felt something ... something incredibly powerful, and not necessarily entirely of the light. Something scary. Something dangerous. Something that was definitely not a nice spell, even if Willow had been kind enough to remove the 'happiness clause.' Willow was supposed to be a white witch ... now, Kagome wondered at the 'now' she sometimes heard appended to the description of Willow's powers. 'She's a white witch now,' people said, as if she hadn't always been. How did a white witch know a spell like this?

Back to the wall, with everyone's lives on the line, she'd called on something darker -- not strictly evil, but not a blessing, either.

The vampire, at the very, very, very last second, altered his strike. The tip of Tessaiga buried itself in the floor as his momentum caused him to stumble. The sword rang like a tuning fork. Kagome winced on Inuyasha's behalf, and stared at the blade until it was obvious it was undamaged.

The vampire stood, eyes wide and fixed on Hanako. His eyes were not amber, now -- they were a blue so intense it looked purple. Where had a Japanese samurai gotten blue eyes?

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

Willow announced happily, "All done. Presto chango, one souled vampire."

The vampire said, in clear Kyoto-accented Japanese, sounding wildly confused, "Please tell me, where am I?"

"What did he say?" Buffy demanded.

"He wants to know where the hell he is," Inuyasha's fists were balled, and his eyes glued to his sword.

"He was politer than that," Kagome said, "but basically, yeah."

"Hey, isn't that one of the questions he's supposed to answer?" Willow complained, standing up from where she had been kneeling on the floor before the pentagram.

Buffy said firmly, "You. Speak English."

"I ..." The vampire's brow furrowed not into a game face, but into a completely perplexed frown. "I understand you, ma'am."

"Ma'am?" Xander laughed. "We have a polite one here."

"I want my sword back," Inuyasha snapped, cutting to the chase. He didn't care much about the vampire's state of ensoulment -- the vampire was still holding Tessaiga.

The vampire spun at Inuyasha's words, took one look at the hanyou, and dropped into a blatantly aggressive swordsman's stance. "Youkai," he hissed.

"I'm a hanyou. If I was a youkai, you wouldn't be standing there. Give me my sword back. Or I'll take it back, and your arm with it." Inuyasha had a definite growl in his voice.

"Inuyasha, that's not helping. Down, boy." Buffy cast him a dirty look. In a calm tone of voice, she said, "Kenshin, we need your help."

A blink of acknowledgment from the red-haired vampire was her only reaction.

"That's your name, right?" Willow said. "Kenshin?"

"Himura-san," Kagome asked him, in Japanese, "please, bear with us. You are Himura Kenshin, yes? That's who their research says you are. Are they right?"

"Please, please tell me. Where am I?" He shook his head slowly. "What happened? I was ..."

He fell silent. Slowly, the tip of Inuyasha's sword lowered. He looked around the room, taking it all in, studying them, checking out his surroundings thoroughly. He was confused, but clearly trying to orient himself.

He said quietly, finally, with with great dignity, "My heart isn't beating. I'm not breathing unless I need to speak. And the last thing I remember, I was ... I was at peace, I think."

"Oh." Buffy said, in a very small voice. Then, "I'm sorry we called you."

The vampire closed his eyes. "What is this place?"

"You'll remember in a moment," Angel sounded keenly sympathetic. "Believe me, you'll remember everything you've done."

"Please, sir, tell me. Why is my heart not beating?" He made an abortive move to sheath the sword in his hand -- he wasn't wearing a sheath.

"My. Sword." Inuyasha bit each word out distinctly. Then, fists balled, he growled.

Kenshin's grip tightened again on the sword and he resumed a defensive posture. Inuyasha, with a frustrated grumble, lunged.

"Osuwari!" Kagome's voice cracked out. Likely, Inuyasha simply intended to snatch the sword back by brute force, but she could see all sorts of ways this could go bad. Inuyasha hit the ground with a thud. She winced. "Sorry."

"Let me the fuck up! He has Tessaiga! Fuck you, Kagome!" Inuyasha thrashed in real anger. Kagome figured the tantrum had been a long time in coming; Inuyasha had been on his absolute best behavior for a good long while and had finally snapped. He probably wouldn't have lost it if she had not been in the room to stop him -- but this was bad timing, and her lips pursed into a thin line of annoyance. Sometimes, he was absolutely maddening.

Spike said, "I think you have the 'fuck you' part covered already, Rover."

The comment was, apparently, a bit of a stress reliever for the room. Snickers erupted from everyone except for Kenshin, who just looked baffled.

"What?" Inuyasha demanded. "What?!"

"The floor, umm, sorta creaks. Rythmically." Willow pointed upwards. Kagome mentally arranged the geography of the hotel in her head and realized the second floor library was directly below the third floor hotel room they'd used for, ah, activities. She felt a hot blush hit her cheeks as the meaning of Willow's words dawned on her. They'd overheard?

Inuyasha just growled again.

Hanako said clearly in Japanese, in a voice that carried over the laughter. "You do have Inuyasha's sword, Himura-san. It doesn't belong to you. It's very important to him and he would like it back. It is very old -- it is his father's sword."

The man studied Hanako. And he was a man now -- Kagome could sense a clear change with the addition of his soul. There was still youkai to him, but her miko powers insisted he was a man. She could feel it. And it was probably clear to everyone in the room, too, even those without so much as hint of magic. There was a clarity to his gaze and a feel to his aura that couldn't be faked by a soulless monster.

"What did I summon ...?" Willow said softly. "Goddess, what did I summon?"

Kenshin turned to Inuyasha, who was finally picking himself up off the floor. That clear amethyst gaze surveyed her hanyou, seemed to bore into the very core of his being. Suddenly, he stepped forward and offered Inuyasha his sword back, hands outstretched. He bowed after Inuyasha snatched the blade, and said, "I apologize. I am not sure ... I am not sure where I am. Or what happened. But you, sir, have the ki of a swordsman and are no monster. I'm ... I'm a bit disoriented. Why is my heart not beating?"

Plaintively, he added, "I was at peace."

"Himura-san, you'll remember in a moment, I'm afraid." Angel sounded sympathetic. "It takes a bit to remember everything, because of the shock."

"Am I dead?"

"In a manner of speaking." Angel sighed.

Kenshin -- and she found she couldn't think of him as the vampire anymore, or the hitokiri -- repeated calmly, "Who are you?"

He wasn't a thing. A vampire was a thing to be killed, the hitokiri was a label for a monster. He was a man: a person whose identity as a souled creature was as brilliant as the sun to her miko senses.

"Oh!" Willow said. "Umm. Introductions. I guess we should do introductions. I'm Willow Rosenberg. That's Buffy. Angel. Spike. Xander. Hanako. Kagome. Inuyasha. You'll meet everyone else in a bit; they're keeping watch right now."

Kenshin nodded gravely. "Thank you for your names. Who are you?"

"Slayers." Kagome provided him the explanation she thought he was looking for. "Well, Buffy and me and Hanako are. Angel and Spike are vampires. Inuyasha's a hanyou. Xander's a friend. Slayers are chosen by the higher powers to have special abilities so that we can fight demons."

Kenshin blinked at her. "I'm a vampire."

"Yeppers," Willow assured him.

His eyes suddenly grew very wide. He sank slowly to his knees and stared at his hands. There was horror in his expression. His memories as a vampire, Kagome guessed, had begun to surface. He said nothing, just sat there. Moments ticked away. She began to wonder if the man was ever going to get up. Had they broken him?

But finally, he looked at her -- straight at her, perhaps because she'd been the one to answer his question earlier. His eyes, so crystal clear a moment ago, were deeply shadowed now.

"She never knew." Kenshin closed those haunted eyes, a bit to Kagome's grief -- his gaze was unsettling. "She never knew I was dead and gone and a demon was wearing my body."

"I'm sorry." Kagome meant it. She'd never seen anything quite so terrible as the expression on his face. She didn't know who the 'she' was but it was painfully obvious that 'she' was someone who had mattered very much to this man.

He blinked. She thought he might be crying, except that there were no actual tears on his face. The emotion was there, however. She saw deep, deep grief on his face. And through the grief he said, "You summoned me from beyond my final rest because you desperately need my help. Is this correct?"

"Yeah, that's right."

The man blew out a deep, long sigh. "I will help. The first task will be to return you home. Then we can stop Lord Torin."

"Thank you." Buffy breathed.

"Don't thank me." He turned his unnerving, unnatural eyes on Buffy -- who met his gaze squarely and didn't flinch. "When I'm done here, I simply ask that you send me home too. You can show your gratitude by letting me rest."

Buffy nodded gravely. "I can promise to do that."

"Buffy, he means ..." Willow started to protest.

"I know what he means." Buffy squared her shoulders and stood up straight. "It is the least we can do. I'm sorry ... I'm truly sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Himura."

The man smiled, a faint and ghostly smile. "If our roles were reversed, I would have chosen to do the same. There is no harm done -- and perhaps even some good, if sending me home also means ending the evil of the demon which also wears this body."

No harm, Kagome thought, Except for bringing terrible grief to a soul that was resting and at peace and who should have been beyond all worldly concerns. No harm at all.

--  



	17. Chapter 17

"Would you, umm, like a bath?"

The red-haired witch was frightened of him. Or, possibly, frightened of what he represented. Kenshin cradled a mug of hot tea in his hands and regarded her over it and across the oak expanse of a library table. They'd given him tea, and now they were offering him a bath. It did not escape him that the witch was also his jailer, but she was a polite, concerned jailer. With justification, they didn't trust him yet. He remembered how the demon had treated prisoners and grieved for those people. The way the Slayers were treating him was very different.

/They'll just betray you later!/ the demon thought in his head.

/Shut up, you!/ he thought back, savagely. He saw no reason to be the slightest bit polite to a monster.

They were his entertainment, Kenshin remembered, of how the demon had viewed prisoners. Vampires had short attention spans and his demon was unusually intelligent and creative. It was also bored a good bit of the time, and had found amusement in tormenting the prisoners. In Torin, it had found someone to share its glee for creative forms of torture. Knowing what he knew from the demon's memories, he was grateful that Inuyasha and Buffy had escaped: the demon had told them Inuyasha would live if he killed Buffy, but in truth, the bracelet was set to kill the hanyou as soon as Buffy died. The demon had found this poetic.

/Such sweet irony. And beautifully efficient./

It saddened him to think of the losses these good people had suffered at the hands of Torin and himself -- or rather, at the hands of the demon that possessed his own body. As the demon's memories continued to surfaced, he was becoming more and more aware that he was among heroes now. They'd fought and suffered massive losses, and yet still planned to fight again.

Also, as his memories as a demon surfaced, he was finding it harder and harder to distinguish between his own identity and that of the demon. When you could recall, viscerally, sucking the blood of a child or plotting and executing the deaths of thousands of enemy demons it was hard to keep sight of the fact that you were not the person who'd done the deeds. They were, after all, his memories, in the first person, with gleeful emotions and scents and sounds and sights attached.

It didn't help that he had his fair share of blood and guts and grief and loss in his own true memories.

The demon helpfully shoved some gorier, disgusting, emotionally traumatic memories up for Kenshin's review. When he mentally flinched at an image of a little girl being forced to kill her puppy, the demon cackled. /Gotcha! Gotcha! I'm gonna drive you insane!/

Kenshin replied calmly with, /If I didn't drive myself insane, you'll never succeed./

The demon replied with a memory of his first wife's blood spilling over his arms. /Tomoe!/ he thought, stunned, before he could control himself. The demon cackled in amusement at the torment it could inflict on him.

He closed his eyes briefly. Accepting the bath was tempting. He wanted to stand under a spray of water until his very skin washed away. He felt so dirty, and not just because of the grime on his skin -- though Torin didn't believe in hygiene for his minions, and worse, the demon hadn't cared much about the filth. Kenshin had never been vain, not even when he was alive. But he'd made sure his hair was clean and combed, that he didn't stink, and that his clothing was washed and mended. Point of pride, even when he was a wandering rurouni with one pair of hakama and a red-faded-to-pink, much-mended top to his name, he'd never been a slob.

/Yeah, you did laundry like a woman while that dyke you called a wife beat up the boys./

/She was far from a dyke and I enjoyed every minute of the laundry./ He realized the demon was just throwing impotent and inaccurate insults out, trying to get a rise out of him in any way it could. With a frown, he stopped answering.

The grime on his skin itched and he could smell himself. There was blood in his hair and ick on his clothing. His hair hung in tangled dreadlocks. Truthfully, he was ashamed by at what he must look like to this people.

Willow's voice startled him, making him realize he'd been lost in thought and internal dialogue with the monster in his head. "We're about the same size. I have some stuff you could wear."

He tried to keep a dubious expression off his face, but knew he had failed when her smile faded just a bit. She was currently wearing a very girly pink sweater, with sparklies on it, and an even more feminine skirt, and tights. Also, she was being nice about the size bit. They were not far off from the same height -- he was perhaps an inch shorter -- but she had twenty pounds on him and it was distributed, female fashion, in ways that would make her the waist of her pants too large. Well, a belt could fix that if one didn't care about fashion and he certainly didn't. But still. He was short and dainty enough without wearing girl clothes!

"Jeans. And a t-shirt. Unisex, I promise. Really." She dimpled at him, the smile brightening again.. She was cute, he realized: the sort of cute that made him ferociously protective without a bit of hormonal interest. He had always liked irrepressible little girls, and Willow still had a good bit of girl in her. He liked her, and wanted her to like him. She made him want to clown around, to play the fool and make her laugh.

The demon had liked to clown around, play the fool, make the girls laugh ... then turn their giggles into betrayal, horror, and violation as soon as they trusted him. /I'd like to flirt with her until she likes me, and then rape her, then drink her dry and leave her body for that tall boy to find./

/Shut up, you./ The hunger that accompanied the demon's words chilled him. Kenshin could taste it ... the desire for power over other's lives. It made him want to withdraw from her -- which would effectively be letting the demon win. /You're not me, and I don't have to listen to you./

He turned his entire attention to the young witch. Reluctantly, because he knew she'd be disappointed at his refusal of her offer, he shook his head. "I am sorry because I know I am offensive to the nose. You will need me to return to Torin's headquarters. It will be something unusual if I am clean when I do so."

She bit her lip, then said, "You'll need to go back to remove the spell?"

He nodded. "He cast it from his war room. I'll need to get in and break the talisman he used. It's simple enough, but will require me to be me so Torin doesn't suspect anything."

Me. The word rang in his ears. He cringed mentally, as he felt the demon within him gibber triumphantly. /Me!/ The demon insisted. /You are me and I am you! You cannot separate us! You cannot deny my existence! You've lived as a demon for over a century! Fool!/

He said, in Japanese, to the demon, "You just shut up and I'll pretend to be me. Pretend to be you, I mean."

He realized he was talking aloud -- though in Japanese -- when Willow said, again, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He lied completely, because he wasn't. This world was awful -- bright and loud and full of old griefs he'd long thought left behind. He'd lived his life, and lived it well, and died a heroic death, and that was that. It had been time for resting, and time for warmth and love. Somehow, he'd earned a gentle, peaceful rest. And that had been taken from him. As a bonus, he had a demon in his head. He added, "Just talking to myself."

"As long as you don't get an answer." She dimpled again.

The demon muttered, /I always liked to eat irrepressible little girls. They were so cute when they screamed./

And with that comment came more memories -- memories of charming children, and luring them off, and then killing and eating them. He closed his eyes as the sorrow rose. /Would that I could have won that fight, so long ago, with your kin./

/Aren't you angry?/ the demon demanded. /I want you angry!/

"It would be like blaming a mad dog for biting someone," he told the demon -- this time aloud in English. It felt weird to speak English. The demon knew it -- the demon had learned it, somewhere, and now it was part of his own memories and knowledge. Just as he knew how to drive a car, operate a computer, and use a telephone, he knew how to speak English. Yet this was not his own knowledge. It was the demon's.

"Huh?" Willow blinked at him.

He realized he'd answered her comment about not getting an answer with a complete non sequitor. He shook his head. "I am simply talking to the demon. It's trying to provoke me."

"Talking to it?" Her eyes grew wide.

He blinked at her. "There is me, and there is the demon inside me that animates this dead, corrupted body. We are not the same."

She frowned. "That's not how Angel or Spike have ever put it. Their souls just sort've give the demon in them a conscience."

He tilted his head, considering that. He suspected there was more to it than simply obtaining a conscience; they were the souls of men living with demons, not demons who'd acquired a sense of guilt. Still, he allowed, "Perhaps I am simply mad."

/Completely. Totally. Hearing voices in your head. You're bugfuck nuts. Now, can we kill the witch? She's starting to annoy me. She's too cute. I hate cute./

"Or just stubborn, and unwilling to compromise with the demon in any way if it violates your sense of ethics." This came, in Japanese, from Hanako, who slouched through the library door with a mug of crimson blood. He smelled pig from across the room, even as she approached. In English she added, "Angel said give you this."

"Stubborn. Yes." He bowed his head in acknowledgment of that fact. He wondered how she'd known, then decided it didn't matter if it was from reading about him in books or by being a keen judge of character. He also decided he liked Hanako as well -- she was forthright, it seemed, and he liked that in people. He'd always liked strong-willed, outspoken women. He had married one, and counted many others as good friends. "I am often accused of that."

She handed him the mug. He frowned into it, knowing he had to drink it for sustenance but hesitant to do so in front of these two young women. Willow snorted, apparently guessing why he was waiting. "Oh, drink up. Spike eats his with Wheatabix. A vampire drinking pig's blood is something I've seen before, usually over my own dinner."

/Ewww./ The vampire didn't like the idea of pig's blood much.

Neither did he. Quite possibly, he was more repulsed at the idea of pig's blood than human blood, which frightened him. It was a gut-level instinctive reaction. He set the mug down. Neither of these women, he thought, should need to watch him consume such a disgusting meal -- even if Willow claimed it didn't bother her. He would force himself to drink it later. "I thank you, but I am not very hungry."

"Oh." Hanako fidgeted, staring at the mug.

"I do truly thank you, for being considerate enough to bring me a meal, Miss Hanako." It was rude to turn down an offered meal. Still, he just didn't want to eat it. Not now. Not in front of witnesses. Not in front of women.

/Hanako's nummy. Bet she'd last for hours of the most fun torture. Or you could chain her to the wall of your bedroom and eat off her for days./ The demon, apparently, liked Hanako more than Willow. Well, that was something they agreed on -- both of them were attracted to tough girls rather than cute girls. However, the demon wanted to torture the tough girls until they broke. As far as it was concerned, the tougher the better.

He just wanted to see them smile.

He changed the subject, "Willow, where is Buffy? We need to make plans."

/Now there's a tough girl I'd really love to have some time with .../

/I will be so glad when I can rest, just so I don't have to listen to you anymore./

/Hate you./

"Getting cleaned up," Willow said. "She said something about scrubbing her skin off."

"Mmm." Again he thought longingly of a bath. He reached a hand up, touched the matted, greasy mess that was his long hair, and then rested his hands in his lap. Not yet. "I cannot say as I blame Buffy."

"Oh, you can blame me for lots of things." Buffy walked through the doorway that instant. Her damp hair was pulled back into a pony tail, and she was dressed in jeans and a man's shirt several sizes too big. "Starting with pulling you out of heaven. I am sorry about that ... I know how hard that is."

He glanced at her, surprised. Her eyes were shadowed, and, next to her, Willow winced visibly.

Buffy smiled tightly. "Living is a lot harder than dying. I ... know. And I thank you for holding it together and helping us."

"Holding it together?" He blinked. He hurt -- Gods, knew, he hurt. He craved the peace, and warmth, and love that he had been unexpectedly ripped away from.

/Gotcha!/ the demon thought, and sent loud memories of a rock concert roaring through his head, along with images of eating the concert goers behind the stage. He winced.

However, 'losing it' would not bring that peace back, it would just make his inner turmoil worse. He wanted to go back, to leave this world, but he had a sneaking suspicion that staking himself would mean he'd be so full of guilt and self-blame that he would not find peace again. These people needed him. They needed him so badly that they'd called him from beyond death to reinhabit what had once been his body. 'Losing it' -- and he suspected she meant coming unglued with temporary madness -- was a luxury he didn't have right now. "Miss Summers, I'm a very practical man. I don't see the point of 'losing it' as you say."

He scratched his jaw. "Besides, I tried going mad, a long time ago. It didn't work out very well and I hurt a lot of people who loved me. I make a point in learning from my mistakes."

/You are annoying./

/From you, that's a compliment./

/Grr./

/I believe I've won this round./

/Grr./

Buffy's snort was apparently a noise of agreement with his statement about 'learning from his mistakes.' However, she simply said, "So, I figured that we need to talk plans. Unless you could simply assassinate Torin for us -- but I suspect that's too easy."

"Kill Torin, and everyone wearing one of these ..." he held his wrist up, displaying the gold circlet around it, "... dies. Makes for loyal minions, yes?"

"Which would kill you." Buffy frowned at him. He couldn't tell what she was thinking but he wondered if she was contemplating asking him to commit suicide in the name of the greater good ... which, actually, he'd be perfectly willing to do. He craved that peace again, desperately, and had no fear of death.

However, there were other issues. "There are a large number of servants, slaves, and prisoners who would die besides me. It may be necessary to consider them collateral damage, but if you give me a little bit of time I'll try to find another way -- and you can research the problem too. I'll send you information on the bracelets. Torin isn't going to make a move for a few weeks, so we have time."

/Death. Glee. Kill all the innocents! Hah!/ The demon gibbered happily. /Wanna see Torin's face when I betray him. So poetic./

He closed his eyes, shocked that he was even considering taking out Torin and causing the deaths of so many people. Still, he knew what Torin's plans were -- knew, intimately and truly the details -- and perhaps a quick death by spell of a few hundred was better than the madness that would descend on all of Earth if Torin opened a Hellmouth. It would mean the torturous death of billions if Torin succeeded.

Buffy nodded understanding of his words. She looked grim -- likely, she had done the same unpleasant math. Neither of them liked it. Both of them would fight to prevent it. But an iron knife in Torin's back was an option that was on the table. She said, "Well, the first order of business is getting my people to safety."

He agreed with that. Buffy and her Slayers -- and her witch and the demons working for her -- were important, both as friends and strategically. He said, "I intend to release the spell that holds this hotel here. The building will return to Los Angeles when I do so. That is simple enough. However -- what is your next step, after that? Do you have a strategy in mind?"

Buffy blinked. Kenshin wondered if she'd thought past get everyone safe. Well, he had over a century's experience as a general for Torin. This girl was in her mid twenties and, he was given to understand, hadn't even led more than a band of a half dozen or so misfits until four years ago. Their disastrous loss against Torin a few weeks ago was evidence of their lack of skill with logistics -- Torin had lured them into attacking before they were ready by torturing and killing a few children.

Finally, Buffy said, "Regroup and then we'll figure out how to take your boss out. I'm fed up with this."

"You'll need me on the inside if you want to win, Miss Summers. Torin has a very large number of warriors on his side, and he is deliberately avoiding direct personal conflict with you. The reason he went to New York after we captured you was that he was worried you might defeat my men and he did not want to be in the area if you did." He shook his head, then stopped the motion when his long, tangled hair swished across his shoulders. He resisted the temptation to scratch at his scalp, and said, "My suggestion is to let Torin think you are dead -- convincingly dead. Miss Rosenburg, could you make some convincing simulacrums of the members of your party here that I could present to Torin to prove my victory?"

Willow's eyes lit up. "Sure. That'd be easy!"

Buffy regarded him for a long moment before speaking. "Are you proposing that we pretend that the I am my friends are dead, and then stage a surprise attack?"

"Yes. I think that would be best. Torin -- rightfully, I think -- believes that if you and your ... Scoobies .. are dead," he used the word Scoobies hesitantly, but it was a term that his intelligence suggested they used for themselves, "then the remaining force of Slayers will be disorganized and demoralized and no threat to his ambitions."

Buffy rubbed the bridge of her nose. "That's one of our weaknesses, I'll admit. They're too dependent on me -- It will work best if someone from my friends is alive to keep the Slayer army at least pointed in the right direction and planning an assault, so that we can activate them at a moment's notice. I like your plan."

"Xander," Willow suggested. "He's capable of keeping them all in line, and they'll follow him, but on the surface he's not such a threat that Torin would be likely to go after him. -- Am I right, Mr. Himura?"

Kenshin nodded. They were smart; he knew they were now thinking ahead along the same lines he was -- which was to lure Torin into thinking the Slayers were no threat because their command and control had been eliminated. Then, when Torin let his guard down and moved into a position where he was vulnerable, the Slayers would strike decisively. He agreed with Willow's suggestion, and clarified why, briefly, "Xander is human, wholly human, and does not have a rank within your organization. Torin will dismiss him as unimportant, particularly if I tell Torin that the boy behaved cowardly in battle and when he escaped me by hiding, I found it not worth my while to pursue him."

Hanako said softly, in her Kyoto-accented Japanese that was achingly familiar to Kenshin's ears, "Himura-san, will you be okay going under cover for them? Doubtless you will need to do unpleasant things. You were a hero once, and everything I've ever read about you says you were ..."

He cut her off, a little rudely, and mostly because he didn't want to think too much about the things he knew he would need to do. "Aa. I was no hero, just a man. And I've also been a monster for more than a century. I can be a monster for a little while longer if it means stopping Torin."

He glanced at Hanako, wondering how much English she actually understood. She certainly didn't speak it well, but clearly, she was following the conversation more-or-less. She met his gaze, then looked away -- down, at the table. Her eyes were intelligent, perceptive.

Buffy nodded. "We appreciate it. -- What's the best way to pass messages back and forth?"

Kenshin snorted. "Torin is technologically clueless, and worse, dismissive of the modern world. We'll use e-mail. I can access an e-mail account using a hidden profile on my laptop and he'll never be the wiser."

"You have e-mail?" Willow sounded surprised.

"I had internet access set up for Torin's pocket dimension a few years ago. It's useful." iAnd the demon has a healthy appetite for certain exotic flavors of porn/i but he wasn't about to tell these sweet young women that.

The demon helpfully forced images of said porn up to his consciousness, and Kenshin blushed ferociously. /Gotcha!/ The demon cackled.

He continued, in a voice that was a bit shaken, "And often -- often educational. I'm certainly not the only one among your enemies who found out a great deal about the Slayers on the internet. There are whole forums where demons discuss your activities."

Willow said, "Really? I didn't know that."

Kenshin regarded her with a frown. Her tone implied that perhaps she did. Not for the first time, he was left wondering about the accuracy of the information discussed on demon forums on the internet. The Slayers had some flaws in their command structure, and they were inexperienced, but they weren't stupid. It would be easy for them to spread false data. It would also be stupid of them to confirm anything like that with him -- they couldn't possibly trust him. Soul or not, he was a vampire and until a few hours ago he had been a loyal minion working for for Torin. Even if he was now fully willing and eager to switch sides, they had to be aware that a stupid ally could do more damage than a smart enemy. They didn't know for sure how savvy he'd be in his new role as a mole.

But all he said, finally, was, "If you have a piece of paper, I'll give you my e-mail address. However, I'll send my e-mails in Japanese to Hanako and Kagome -- just as a little extra insurance, since Torin doesn't speak or read the language. Have them respond the same way, please."

Inuyasha's arm was tight around Kagome's shoulder as they watched the vampire approach the barrier. It parted for him and for the burden he carried in his arms -- a chillingly lifelike (or perhaps "deathlike") body with long, trailing white hair and clawed hands. The body had been artistically mutilated, and was an ugly, bloody mess. Kenshin disappeared through the swirling boundary, then returned for the next -- and last -- faux corpse.

After he'd dumped a 'dead Willow' body off, he surprised them by returning. His clear, pale eyes glanced over the assembled Slayers, demons, and friends. He said, quietly, "Sesshoumaru, Torin plans to kidnap your child tonight. He will send some of his men -- he believes you are dead, and your servant will be little challenge for them. I suggest that you take the child to a safe place and not confront them directly -- you are, after all, supposed to be dead."

Sesshoumaru had been very difficult to convince to play along. He was not the sort to engage in subterfuge -- too proud, Kagome thought. Still, Sesshoumaru nodded once, curtly. "I understand."

Kenshin closed his eyes. From what they'd gleaned from intelligence on the girl, she was two -- and would grow to be as powerful as her uncle. A prize indeed for an Unseelie lord, and a tempting target if the lord thought that Sesshoumaru was dead. He said, grimly, "Torin would use her for his own means. I do not need to tell you what sort of magic can be done with the blood of a young hanyou child."

"Thank you, Mr. Himura," Buffy murmured. "Kenshin -- be careful."

This earned her a brief flash of teeth in the barest of smiles. He inclined his head in acknowledgement, and said, "And all of you."

And then he was gone, stepping back through the barrier and disappearing from view.

The waited -- long enough that Kagome began to wonder if something had gone badly wrong. The hotel was dark, and silent, except for water dripping somewhere and the occasional creak as the old building shifted.

Then, finally, there was a release of tension. The barrier was gone and the lights of Los Angeles shone through the shattered front doors. The lobby lights flickered on, illuminating a floor that was smeared with ichor, blood, slime and small bits and pieces of dead demons.

Inuyasha growled, "Let's go home, Kagome."

"Home," Shippou echoed.

"Wait a second." Kagome turned to the others, and caught Buffy's attention by waving. "Buffy, we can put a few people up at our place. The wards on the property are formidable -- nothing can get through without Inuyasha's permission."

Buffy blinked. "Sure, good idea. Um -- take Hanako, Meg, and Tammy with you -- do you have room for more than that?"

Inuyasha said shortly, "If they don't mind sleeping on the floor."

"That's fine. Kavan, will you go with them too?" Buffy said.

The Daoine Sidhe lord had been standing behind her, so calm and still that she hadn't realized he was there. She jumped when he said, "As you wish."

Sesshoumaru had walked over as they were talking to Buffy. He said, quietly, and an oddly understated tone, "Inuyasha, do you have room for my daughter, as well?"

Both Inuyasha and Kagome turned to stare at him. However, it was Shippou who spoke up, in a stunned tone of voice, "Sesshoumaru-sama, you hate your brother."

"Do I?" Sesshoumaru lifted an eyebrow at the kitsune. "Perhaps I do."

"But why, if you hate him so much ...?" Kagome couldn't help but ask.

Sesshoumaru seemed, for a minute, as if he was not going to answer the question at all. The look he gave her was coldly expressionless. Then, finally, he gave an explanation, "Because not even I can pass Amelia's wards without my brother's permission so my daughter shall be safe in Inuyasha's home and none shall need to risk exposing this subterfuge defending her."

"Oh." Kagome blinked at the taiyoukai lord. It was a perfectly logical explanation, and she figured Sesshoumaru was just cold-blooded enough to send his daughter off to live with his brother if it would keep her safe.

"Perhaps." Sesshoumaru paused, then added, "And this is a dangerous world we live in. Should I not survive the coming battles, Inuyasha is the only family she has."

Inuyasha snapped, "You presume I'd want her."

"Your fiance wouldn't let you refuse." Sesshoumaru nodded briefly to Kagome, then turned away and walked calmly out the door.

"I hate you," Inuyasha growled after him.

Kagome rest a hand on his shoulder and said, with amusement, "Just look at it this way: you'll have another hanyou in the house."

"I don't like kids."

Shippou clapped a hand on Inuyasha's other shoulder. Smirking, he said, "And I sure know that's the truth."

Kenshin walked across the gory, sticky floor of the keep's great hall. Behind him, several trolls carried the faux bodies.

"Leave them here." He indicated a spot against one wall that was out of the way. The demons dropped the bodies with hollow thuds.

One grunted, "Eat now?"

"Later." Preferably when he wasn't around to watch. He needed the bodies to show Torin now, however.

The Buffy-body was slumped against a wall with an arrow through it. He regarded the body for a long moment, disquieting memories surfacing. It had not been an arrow, rather, a sword so long ago ... but the posture was almost the same.

"Nice job," Torin's voice made Kenshin turn around. He was off his game -- he hadn't sensed his liege lord approaching. Torin was beaming broadly, presumably in reaction to Kenshin's message that he'd completed his task. Torin continued happily, "I've got a reward for you -- I have a couple of prisoners from the trip to New York and there's a pretty brunette in there you might like. A Slayer, I think. She was following us. I thought I'd reward you for the job well done."

He would be expected to torture and kill the brunette, Kenshin knew. He nodded, and forced a happy smile to his lips despite the fact that he felt numb and the demon in his head was gibbering in happy expectation. "Thanks, Boss."

"She's all yours, but make her last," Torin said, casually. He stood several feet from Kenshin -- the man was cautious to the point of paranoia. He continued, "I expect it'll rile up the Slayers a bit that we captured one of their own, so we'll be sitting tight for awhile, until the next stage of our plans."

Well, that gave him a convenient excuse for not draining her dry tonight -- though he didn't look forward to what he would have to do to remain in character while 'making her last.' Kenshin relaxed a little, relieved he would not be expected to kill her immediately, and asked, "Did you have a good trip otherwise, boss?"

"Yeah. Did the Slayers give you any trouble?" Torin nudged the Inuyasha-body with one booted toe.

"Nah. They weren't much of a challenge. The hanyou was a bitch to take down, though, and he and his brother killed quite a few of our fighters -- I'll need to do some hire some new recruits, so I'll need some money from you. Oh, you'll be happy to know we took out Lord Kavan. He'd allied with them."

Torin grinned broadly. "There was a nuisance! -- How much money will you need?"

"We need at least fifty trolls. Also, we're going to need a new kraken -- yours got chopped into little bits, and the little bits will be forever growing up to be big krakens." This was a familiar discussion; they had it after every battle. How many dead; how many needed to be replaced; how much would it cost? "We lost about forty, and some of the slime slugs. I don't want to replace the slugs -- they're a nuisance to clean up after -- so I want to get more trolls to fill in our ranks. Plus a few extra; the slayers are tough opponents and we're going to lose some every time we fight them."

"Expensive victory." Torin frowned at the pile of dead bodies. Then he brightened. "Still, worth it! I'm impressed with you, my hitokiri -- those people have killed a God and you took them out for me on the first try. Will ten grand do it?"

Kenshin shook his head. "Kraken have gotten really expensive lately. Maybe fifteen -- I'll be spending at least seven thousand just on the Kraken. Unless you'd like me to put something else in the moat. Mutant piranha are cheaper."

"No, I like kraken. I can always get more money. Lord Ugar has been trying to hire me to beat on his sister's army anyway. I might take him up on that next week. It'd be a good training exercise for the new trolls anyway."

Kenshin nodded. He was, somehow, shocked at how familiar and easy this discussion was. In a minute he'd go down to Torin's purser and requisition the money, and then send his secretary off to the auction to buy a kraken and then, tomorrow, go personally to the hiring hall to recruit about fifty new trolls. The hall knew him, and because he was a regular customer he got a frequent-customer discount on the hiring hall's commission.

''Do that later. Go enjoy your reward now," Torin said, benevolently -- there was a reason why Kenshin's demon had so willingly followed this Unseelie lord for so long, and that was the fact that Torin treated his minions well. There were rewards for a job well done: wine, women, song. Power. A reliable paycheck. And Torin, who valued his hitokiri very highly, always made sure he had women all to himself, and plenty of the finer things in life.

Except, he thought as scratched himself absently, baths. That was mostly because the keep was rather rustic -- the pocket dimension that Torin had taken over was stuck in the 17th century -- but, still. He itched. Torin's lack of concern for hygiene for his minions -- the man could have imported indoor plumbing -- suddenly, ferociously, annoyed him.

iMaybe I'll arrange to fall in a lake on the way to the market/i he thought, with annoyance, as he climbed the stairs to his room on the fourth floor of the keep.

--


	18. Chapter 18

Unseelie 18

The girl was about twenty.

Kenshin stepped into his quarters and cast her a quick glance then, somewhat embarrassed, he looked quickly away. The same barrier spell that had been on Torin's quarters kept her imprisoned here and she'd doubtless been waiting for him for hours.

She was naked -- Torin had a tendency to force his captives to strip, mostly because he was a sadistic bastard but also because they'd become wary of hidden weapons. When magic was involved, even tattoos could be weapons. However, since this girl was supposed to be a reward for him, Kenshin figured there were better than even odds that she hadn't been violated in more vicious ways.

Most captives that Torin dumped, naked, into Kenshin's quarters grabbed a blanket or one of his spare uniforms to cloth themselves in. She was still unclothed and he wasn't sure if it was terror or defiance that had kept her from acting.

Angry blue eyes blazed at him from beneath a fall of dark brown hair. She was a brunette so dark that her hair looked black until she moved and you saw the mahogany highlights. Brunette everywhere he noted involuntarily, and the demon in his head giggled in reaction to that.

/She's a natural brunette!/ the demon sounded thrilled with this discovery. Kenshin ignored his gibbering run of crude comments as best he could.

She already had a bracelet on -- Torin would have put that on her right away. He wondered if she'd had a taste of the pain that the jewelry could deliver. Maybe. It would explain why she wasn't attacking him straight off. She looked angry enough to slay him with a glare.

Kenshin grabbed a blanket off the bed and tossed it at her. What he really wanted to do was offer her a spare uniform and an assurance of safety, but he couldn't risk his cover. "Wrap yourself in that. I don't want my next meal dying of a cold."

It took everything he had to stay in character: cold, calm, collected. A vampire, but one who was experienced and intelligent.

"What's the point?" She dropped the blanket at her feet, refusing to hide herself with it. So it was sheer, bloody-minded defiance that had kept her from grabbing a blanket. "You're going to kill me, aren't you? After you rape me?"

She bit her words out, but she was also shaking.

"Not right now." He gave her a keener look. She was about twenty, and pretty. Short. Muscular, with abs of steel, but then, most Slayers were athletic. And, ah, defiant. He wished he could tell her that he was on her side, but how could he convince her of that? Anyway, he didn't know if he could trust her. Just because someone was a Slayer, it didn't mean they were automatically on the side of the light. She might betray him if she thought it would improve her chances at survival and escape.

And then she launched herself at him, stake in hand -- she'd broken a leg off a chair, he saw. This was not unexpected.

Deftly, he disarmed her, planted her butt on the ground with a couple of efficient blows, and tossed the stake out the window to the ground four stories below. She was not much of a challenge -- yes, as Torin had said, she was a Slayer, but an untrained one. He snorted. "Do you even know what you are?"

The girl stared blankly at him.

"Are you working for Buffy?"

"Who's Buffy?"

Apparently not. So she hadn't been found by Buffy's people. He asked, "Why were you following Torin?"

"He's evil." The girl glared. "You are too. I can sense it."

Doubtless, she could. He wasn't evil, but she probably was picking up on his demon. He suspected that she'd followed Torin with the intent of fighting him, and had stumbled into more trouble than she'd expected. This, he suspected, was why Slayers had Watchers. The Watchers had the brains to know when an opponent was too much for a Slayer to handle unprepared.

"Go sit." He pointed at a comfortable chair in the far corner of the room. He'd figure out what to do about her later.

She suddenly snagged the blanket up and retreated. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she sat in the chair. Her stare was hot and angry, and full of frank hate for him.

Kenshin said mildly, "Behave, and you'll stay alive. I don't need you for the blood, and it's nice having a pretty girl around here."

"I'm going to kill you in your sleep."

"You can try." He lifted an eyebrow at her. "But I can guarantee that Lord Torin would turn you over to the trolls if he did. You did see the trolls, yes?"

Silence.

"They like pretty little girls. I'm not sure what they like more, raping them or eating them."

His words tasted awful in his mouth, but they were in character for the vampire -- and he hoped they would make her think twice about staking him. What he'd told her was true enough, anyway, though Torin would probably have his fun with her first -- Torin liked his hitokiri general and the last time someone had tried to assassinate Kenshin, Torin's revenge had lasted for days of bloody fun. The vampire had taken gleeful part.

"I'll just kill Lord Torin, then."

He held his own wrist up and tapped his bracelet. "Torin dies, we all die."

More silence, but he was unsettled by the sudden light that gleamed in her eyes.

"And there's a few hundred prisoners down in the dungeons that will die with us." That made the light fade -- she blinked, and suddenly looked hopeless, and he wanted to stake himself for her. Because to make a girl hurt like this -- terrified, scared, alone -- was anathema to everything he'd ever stood for.

Once, he thought with only deep personal grief, you were sworn never to kill again. Now you contemplate the reality that you may need to kill a multitude of innocents to end a worse evil and immediately, here, now, you let an innocent suffer.

The young Slayer had tears brimming in her eyes now. The defiance wasn't entirely gone, but she was scared to death and the light of hope was fading from her eyes.

Kenshin regarded her for a moment, wondering if he should tie her up for both their benefit. He couldn't break his cover -- he couldn't -- and yet, he wanted desperately to do something, anything, to set her at ease. Nothing came to mind, however, so he finally grabbed his laptop off the shelf and retreated to his bed, where he sat crosslegged and tried to focus on drafting an e-mail of the pertinent issues to Buffy via Kagome and Hanako. There really wasn't a think he could do about the girl, except ignore her for the time being.

She tucked her knees to her chest after a moment, and wrapped her arms around her legs, and began to silently cry.

* * *

It was well after dark when Kagome sensed a rapidly approaching youkai.

Inuyasha had flatly refused to give Sesshoumaru access to his land. He'd said, "Fuck that idea," in a tone of voice that told her he would never bend or compromise. It had taken some convincing to get him to let Kavan in, despite the fact that Kavan struck Kagome as inoffensive at best. Sesshoumaru was never going to happen.

So the youkai stopped at the edge of Inuyasha's land.

Kagome rose from the couch -- she was keeping the early watch, and the others would take over from her later. Inuyasha didn't seem to think a watch was entirely necessary, but Kagome figured that the wards were not proof against human attacks and despite Inuyasha's faith in Amelia's work, she knew anything could be broken given enough time and energy.

They'd completed some impossible tasks of their own in the past. And as a Slayer, she'd learned to never underestimate the motivation -- or intelligence -- of evil.

Outside, it was cool. Half a moon hung a quarter of the way above the horizon, and there were few stars: too much moonlight, too much smog. There was no breeze, and only crickets and distant city noises for sound.

Bow in hand, she walked down the drive to meet Sesshoumaru. From a hundred yards away, when she turned a corner in the road, she could see him standing on the far side of the gate -- his white hair, and the fur of his stole, gleamed in the moonlight. He looked now as she'd seen him centuries ago: cold, distant, alien. Young. Far too pretty for anything male.

And there was a tiny child at his feet, one hand clutching the pelt and the other stuffed in her mouth. Rather than a thumb, she was sucking on her knuckles. Rin had been a bit older, but the image of youkai lord and young girl was ingrained in her memory. It made her truly nostalgic to see it.

Ruining the illusion, however, there was a limousine behind him. Somehow, she wasn't surprised that he had one. And for a man who was supposed to be dead, the blacked out windows of the vehicle were proof against spying eyes.

Beside the limousine, there was a diaper bag and a suitcase on wheels.

She drew closer, and saw the girl had puppy ears and wild white curls. Curls. A proliferation of them, swept back into a pony tail, but escaping around her temples. When Kagome flicked a flashlight over them, she could see that the little girl was wearing a Kermit the Frog t-shirt and shoes that had googly froggy eyes on them.

"She's adorable," Kagome said, when she came close enough to speak without shouting. She sensed no one watching -- and likely Sesshoumaru had checked as well -- but there was no sense in advertising their presence to

The child shrank back, shy, and buried her face in Sesshoumaru's legs.

For a moment, he was stern and alien, and then -- his face softened. He crouched, and picked her up, and held her close. It was the briefest of hugs: so quickly did he embrace his daughter that she might have blinked and never seen it. Then he set her down again, pushed her gently in Kagome's direction. "You will take care of her."

"Of course." Kagome bent over, and held a hand out to the little girl.

She hid behind Sesshoumaru's legs.

He sighed. "Anna, go with Kagome."

"No!"

Kagome crouched. "That's a cute t-shirt."

"Jaken got it!" the little girl said, in fluent and unaccented English.

"I like Kermit. And Jaken. Did Jaken get your shoes, too?"

She nodded.

"Do you like Jaken?"

A happier nod. "My froggy!"

"I'm sure Jaken's thrilled with that," she said, in a happy tone, but unable to keep the irony entirely out of her voice.

"Surprisingly," Sesshoumaru said, "he is. He wanted to come with her, but I doubted my brother would tolerate him, and I'd hate to lose my best servant to his claws."

Kagome looked up, shocked that Sesshoumaru would suggest such a thing. "Inuyasha wouldn't hurt him."

Though, granted, convincing Inuyasha to permit Jaken access to his land would have been a battle. She was somewhat glad that she didn't have to fight that one out with him.

"Hnnnh." Sesshoumaru reached down, picked his daughter up, and handed her to Kagome, who reflexively accepted her. "We're exposed out here. Get her to safety, girl."

"Of course."

The child started crying, and wriggling.

"Anna, stop it." Sesshoumaru said, very sternly.

Anna hiccuped and fell quiet. "Daddy ..." she started to hold her arms out.

Sesshoumaru's expression again softened. He reached out, and suddenly was closer to Kagome than he'd ever been before -- inches away, as he tucked one of his daughter's stray curls over her shoulder and then stroked her cheek with his knuckle. Softly, he said, "You can't come with me, little one. I shall be fighting bad people, and it's too dangerous for you to be with me. I can't keep you safe apart from me and I cannot keep you with me. Here, behind Amelia's wards, you shall be safe -- and, I suspect, loved."

Kagome met his eyes.

He'd never looked more mortal, more a man and less a cold, alien, youkai lord. There was an honest expression on his face -- naked, open, fear. Not for himself, but for the child in her arms.

"Sometimes, to keep someone safe, you cannot be their family." He looked suddenly away. "Have you ever wondered where hell dimensions come from, Kagome-san?"

She blinked at him, startled by the slipping of barriers between them. He'd let his defenses down, just for a second. She shook her head.

"Most hell dimensions are worlds where the forces of good lost the fight against evil. I am not a force of good. But I much prefer peace and prosperity to war and misery. Therefore, I oppose the forces of chaos and evil. I do not wish this world to become a hell dimension. I wish it to remain a place where my daughter can grow up safe, in a pleasing environment."

He stroked his daughter's hair with one clawed hand -- those poisoned nails were inches from Kagome's own cheek. It didn't even occur to her to flinch.

"I've made many enemies, over my life. It is not a good thing to be my family." He met her gaze again. "Do you understand me?"

She nodded. "Inuyasha doesn't understand."

"I never intended him to." And in a blink of an eye, he was cold, impassive, unemotional again. His mask settled back in place and a cold chill ran down her spine in response, because she could sense as well as see the change in his demeanor. He wasn't just acting -- he really was that stony, icy, much of the time.

And yet, her curiosity was piqued more than ever. She said, "Yet you loved a human woman."

He inclined his head in acknowledgment of that fact. "A weakness, on my part."

"A weakness that gave you a daughter."

"And cost me my daughter's mother." His expression was bleak now. He stroked his daughter's hair one more time, then turned away. He stepped into the limousine, and pulled the door shut after himself, and then the vehicle backed up and moved away. As quickly and simply as that, he was gone.

Anna snuffled in Kagome's arms. "Daddy."

"Shh." Kagome slung the diaper bag over her shoulder, and then her bow, and grasped the handle of the rolling suitcase. Thus laden, she began to trudge back up the hill to the house on the ridge. By the time she reached the top, Anna was crying in earnest for Jaken and for her father.

Kagome said quietly, "Shh. People are sleeping."

But it did no good. The toddler continued to wail miserably, and she started to push away from Kagome with surprising -- or perhaps unsurprising -- strength. She had claws, and those talons threatened to scratch Kagome's arms.

"Down!" The toddler insisted. "Down! Down! DADDDDDDDY!"

"Oh, hush that noise." Inuyasha stepped out of the front door.

"Owe," Kagome said, as the child's claws drew blood on her arm.

Inuyasha's nostrils flared. He reached out and plucked the baby from Kagome's hands and held her up and studied her. The child fell silent, staring back at him with enormous golden eyes. "So this is my niece."

"She's scared," Kagome said, in defense of the child -- but she needn't have bothered.

Inuyasha, surprising Kagome a great deal, cradled the child in his arms. Anna snuffled and clung to him. "Are you scared?" he asked, and stroked her hair. The gesture was somehow similar to the way his brother had soothed his daughter -- the similarity was eerie, and made Kagome blink.

She nodded silently.

"It's okay to be scared." He set her down, then, and crouched so that he was on eye level with her. "But I promise you, we'll take good care of you, and you'll be safe here."

"I want Froggy."

"Jaken," Kagome murmured, in explanation.

Inuyasha smirked. "I'm sure he loves that. -- Froggy's not here ..."

"Want Froggy!"

He rested his hands on her shoulders. "Froggy's not here, and I can't get him for you. But I'm here. My name's Inuyasha. I'm your uncle."

"My un-cle?" She stared up at him. Then, suddenly, she reached out and touched one of his ears. "Ears!"

Inuyasha ruffled her hair. "That's right. We have the same ears. Claws, too."

He held his hands out, showing her. Then he reached up, and somewhat roughly yanked Kagome down so that she was crouched beside him. He pointed at Kagome's arm. "You hurt Kagome with your claws. You have to be more careful."

"Sorry." She stared at Kagome's arm, where a small bead of blood was forming. Then she burst into tears. "I'm sorry!"

"Shhh. It's okay. You didn't mean it." Kagome had not noticed the scratch until Inuyasha had pointed it out. "Kiddo, it's okay."

"Hurt you!" The child suddenly stumbled towards Kagome and offered her a hug. "I'm sorry!"

"It's okay to be scared." Inuyasha stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "But it's not okay to hurt people when you're scared. What are you going to do to avoid hurting Kagome?"

Kagome wondered if the child understood, because it was a bunch of big concepts for a toddler. However, Inuyasha continued, "Make your hands into fists."

She stared up at him, big golden eyes brimming with tears. Kagome was reminded of a soulful, sad-eyed puppy -- not, she decided, an inappropriate analogy.

"Like this." Inuyasha demonstrated, hiding his own claws inside two fists. "Now you can't scratch her."

The child mimicked him.

"Now hug Kagome."

With her hands carefully balled, the little girl threw her arms around Kagome's neck and hugged her. "I'm sorry."

"Good job." Inuyasha picked her up then, and carried her the rest of the way into the house. The little girl seemed calmer, somehow. Amazed, Kagome followed them.

He set her down on the couch and held his hand out for the diaper bag. Kagome handed it over, and Inuyasha dumped it out -- there were a couple of diapers, and assorted supplies, plus a sippy cup, and a few outfits -- many of them with a frog theme. Kagome suspected Jaken did most of the little girl's clothes shopping. Somehow, she couldn't see Sesshoumaru buying a Muppet bib.

He turned to the suitcase, and zipped it open. Inside was half a case of diapers plus more outfits, and a neatly folded set of Miss Piggy sheets. There were also several small toys -- dolls, toy cars, a plush frog the size of a basketball, picture books, and a short length of feather boa.

Anna pounced on the feather boa and wrapped it around herself. "Like Daddy."

Inuyasha smirked. "Yes, like Daddy."

"What size are those sheets?" Kagome asked, then unfolded them. Twin, it turned out. The couch folded out, but it was a queen sized mattress, as was the guest bed upstairs -- which was also currently occupied by three very tired Slayers. Kavan had claimed the floor in Inuyasha's office. She had been highly amused to walk past the door and hear the elf snoring.

She asked Anna, "Do you usually sleep in a big kid's bed or a crib?"

"No crib!" Emphatically, the child stamped her foot. "Big girl!"

"She'd just jump out of a crib, anyway." Inuyasha ruffled her ears. "Tonight, she can sleep down here with me -- I'm going to keep watch until dawn. We'll figure out where to put her tomorrow. Maybe a cot in our room. Safest, that way. My brother's right to be worried -- she's going to be a target for years until she's old enough to defend herself."

"Miss Piggy." The toddler patted the sheets. "Miss Piggy!"

Inuyasha draped the sheets over the couch. "C'mere, kiddo. You can have your Miss Piggy sheets." He scooped her up and set her down on them. "How about I tell you a story?"

Impressed, but also a little concerned, Kagome settled down on the other side of him. However, Inuyasha told a perfectly appropriate story about a little girl who liked frogs, and kissed one, and it turned into a prince. Kagome was shocked by how quickly Anna fell asleep -- she was curled in a still, slumbering ball moments after Inuyasha started the story.

He draped the top sheet over her and tucked the stuffed frog next to her, then rose. "Go on to bed," he said, low, to Kagome.

"Inuyasha," she pulled him into the kitchen, ignoring his order. "You're good with her."

He shrugged and looked away

"You used to be awful with kids."

"Oh, with Shippou. He liked it." Inuyasha scuffed a foot on the floor. "She's scared to death. I could smell it. Brave, but scared. She's so little. Too little. She doesn't understand why her daddy went away. At least I was old enough to know ..." he trailed off. "To understand shit."

"When did you get so good with kids ...?" She wouldn't let it rest.

He shrugged. "Amelia couldn't have children, but sometimes we took in brats that needed us. They're mostly all dead now. Mostly they were human." He eyed Kagome for a moment. She saw old grief in his eyes. She wondered about the 'mostly' bit and resolved to draw some stories out of him later, when they weren't both dead tired and busy with a war.

Softly, hesitantly, and with his eyes searching her expression, he said, "You could have kids."

"Not yours." She said, without really thinking about it. He was sterile. Hanyou always were, she'd learned. She'd found that out from Shippou, and had never asked Inuyasha about children. She had always assumed she would never be a mother if she married him. Besides, she'd never expected him to be so caring towards a little one. He'd tormented Shippou endlessly when the kitsune had been small. Inuyasha didn't like kids, did he?

He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "They'd still be mine. It's not about blood."

"Oh." She frowned at him, wondering why she'd never seen this part of him before. He wanted kids?

He glanced towards the living room. "I was five. Three years older than she was." He hunched his shoulders. "She'll have the same problems with controlling her youkai as I did. Be careful with her, Kagome. She's little, but she's got fangs and claws and if she's scared she could badly hurt you without ever meaning it."

"I ... figured that out."

* * *

Kenshin woke to the sound of hysterical tears, and the bright, sharp scent of blood.

He was on his feet in an instant. He'd only been catnapping, expecting an attack. He could, of course, have put the girl in the dungeon -- but they would have certainly victimized her there. He could have tied her up, and had seriously considered it, but when she had remained seated in the chair for hours he'd allowed himself to drift into a half-doze.

She was crying now, and rocking back and forth as blood dribbled down her arm. When he stood up she looked at him in surprise -- perhaps she'd thought him deeper asleep -- and said, "I don't want you to hurt me. I won't let you!"

So her answer was suicide, instead. And a half-assed attempt at it, too. Kenshin, vampire, had a pretty good idea of the amount of blood loss it took to kill a human. Enough blood to fill his belly with enough left over for a minion or two. Not the amount of blood that was trickling from one small vein on her wrist. It looked like a lot, but it wasn't, really. The cut was shallow. She thought she was going to die, but was nowhere close. He figured it would probably clot long before she bled out.

Kenshin swore anyway, grabbed his sheet off his bed, and stalked over to her. "Don't be an idiot."

The words were his, surprisingly, and not the vampire's. He found he was truly annoyed and more than a little impatient.

"You're going to torture me to death. I won't have it!" She was shaking, her eyes enormous. "Torin said ... Torin gave details about what you'd do."

"Torin's a sick bastard who probably enjoyed terrifying you." Kenshin mashed a couple folds of the sheet to her wrist. She was tense, scared, eyes enormous. The smell of blood was making him hungry -- a sharp reminder that the last he'd eaten was the pig's blood Hanako had given yesterday. His stomach growled. "For future reference," he stared at his letter opener in her hand, "if you're going to kill yourself, you need to be more enthusiastic about the effort. This is just messy."

Absently, he licked her blood off the palm of his hand -- then realized what he'd done when the demon cackled in his head.

Well, fuck.

She tasted sweet and young and nubile, with a delicious frisson of adrenalin, too. The entire concept nauseated him -- worse, he realized he would once have savored every drop.

She was staring at him.

He retreated, and she put pressure on her own wound. She didn't want to die, he realized, but she was so terrified of what he might do to her that she'd decided that suicide was an acceptable alternative.

Her eyes were huge.

Blue.

Beneath a fall of dark brown curls.

He sighed. "What's your name?

"Katherine. Kay." She spoke shakily.

She was a Slayer. That counted for a lot, in his book -- Slayers were chosen because they had the ability to fight evil. Ability wasn't just about physical traits, it was also about mental strength. There were exceptions -- Slayers gone bad -- but they were few and far between.

She was terrified.

She was young, and beautiful.

Hesitantly, he said, "Miss Kay ... I am not going to torture you."

"You're a monster."

"A vampire. Yes. I'm not going to hurt you." He wanted to smack himself. Pretty girls had always been one of his weaknesses. It had never turned out badly for him before, but now, it was no exaggeration to sat that the fate of the world was on the line. If Lord Torin found out that he was acting out of character, it could expose him.

He rose, shaken, wondering what in the world he was supposed to do.

He could pretend to kill her, and smuggle her out ... but there were all sorts of ways that could go badly.

He could tell her about his secret, but she could expose him -- or simply not believe him.

He could leave things as they were, at least temporarily -- but she was so terrified of what he might do, she was willing to die to avoid it.

"Are you ... are you going to make me a vampire?" Her eyes were huge. Terrified.

She didn't know about the other Slayers, but he suspected from her reactions that she'd discovered what vampires were -- and perhaps had fought a few. Her terror was palpably real.

"Keep pressure on that arm." He rose and retreated back to his bed.

She started crying quietly. He would have left his room, and let her sob, but he was concerned that she might try something else. She was so very scared.

After long minutes of tears she suddenly lunged to her feet and bolted across the room back to her chair. There, she huddled in a ball under the blanket, staring at him.

He closed his eyes, and watched her with his other senses. When her ki calmed, and her even breathing announced she'd drifted off into a restless doze -- and this took a couple of hours -- he finally stirred. There would be no more sleep for him tonight.

Well, she would have to be fed. And clothed. He rose and silently extracted a more-or-less clean uniform from his wardrobe and left it folded on the chair beside her. Then, though he was worried about what she might do while left alone, he went to find a servant who could obtain food for her.

"You." He spotted one of the scullery maids. "I need food."

The servant girl -- she was human -- stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. She looked just as scared of him as Kay did.

"Not _you_, ma'am ... idiot." His demon had never eaten the staff. It was bad for moral, and kept the household from running smoothly. And it pissed off the butler and the head housekeeper, and that was bad for the hitokiri's level of comfort. Both were Unseelie, and the demon was scared of both of them. However, he was less than kind to the servants -- he tormented them on a regular basis, just because being cruel amused him. "Go get some soup from the kitchen. And some bread. Suitable for a human. I have a guest."

"Yessir." The girl bolted for the kitchens at a dead run.

Kenshin closed his eyes. Suddenly, painfully, he craved the calm, the peace, the quiet, the comfort he had been so rudely wrested from. He wanted to go back to that, to not have to worry about the fate of the world or even the fate of one pretty, traumatized young woman. The fate of the world had no longer been his responsibility; he had simply been at peace.

--


	19. Chapter 19

Author's Note: As some of my readers are aware, I have some health issues. Because of this, I am updating stories much slower than before. I am still dedicated to my fics (all of them) but I am no longer able to update once or twice a week like I used to.

The good news is some of you were kind enough to nominate this story and Slayer of Nightmares for a total of three Crossing Over Awards. I thank everyone who's nominated me, or who votes!

---

Kay woke to the smell of food. She hadn't eaten in two days, and her stomach growled painfully as a reminder. Grimacing, and more than a little confused by what her nose was telling her, she lifted her head from her arms and discovered that there was a bowl of soup plus a plate of cheese and crackers on an end table beside her chair.

She blinked at the improbable appearance of food. Why were they feeding her?

The vampire was present: he sat at a desk with his back to her. He had a laptop computer open, but shut the lid swiftly when he, evidently, heard her move. His tangled, matted, _gross_,red hair tumbled down his back in an untidy massl.

"Please be assured, Miss Kay, the food's not drugged," he said, without turning around. "I can have one of the servants sample it if you'd like."

"Why?"

"Because you are almost certainly hungry. Lord Torin never feeds his captives."

"Why do you care?" She clarified. Her instincts told her vampires were evil. Everything she'd seen had confirmed that. She'd discovered her super powers a few years before, and had been killing vampires since then.

Absolute silence, from this vampire.

It probably didn't matter if one of the servants sampled things first or not. Sooner or later they'd kill her. She'd seen others killed, in the last day, by the trolls and the vampires. "Will I be ... stuck ... here, if I eat this? Torin's an elf, right?"

The vampire sounded almost reassuring when he said, "This is not Faerie. You're safe."

"Hardly," she snapped, in response to his assurance that she was safe. Then she bit back further insults. She didn't want to give him an excuse to do her in now ... though part of her just wanted to get it over with. Part of her wanted to do it herself, to steal that last little bit of control back from him. If she was going to die, she wanted to do it on her terms.

He turned around, then, and regarded her with those impossibly blue eyes. She stared back at him. She wondered, with what felt almost like frustration, why was he keeping her alive?

He finally responded, "Miss Kay, you are correct. You are not safe. None of us are. Torin intends to open a Hellmouth and it will end Earth as you know it -- you're not safe here and you're not safe there."

"A Hellmouth?" Despite herself, she had to ask the question. What was a Hellmouth?

He rose and walked to the window. "Please come here." She remained seated, ignoring his summons. She was constitutionally incapable of being agreeable to a demon. Particularly one who smelled so very rancid.

"Come. Here." He repeated, then modified it with, surprisingly, "Please. I want to show you something."

Reluctantly, she stood up. Aware of her nudity, she grabbed the blanket off the chair, wrapped herself in it, and joined him at the window. Belatedly, she noticed a uniform similar to his was draped over the arm of the chair. Perhaps it _was _his -- it looked like his size, which meant it would be a bit small for her. He was a slim man, with narrow hips, a wiry body,and he was an inch or two shorter than she was. While not exactly well endowed, she knew her chest measurements would be a lot bigger than his, and her waist wider as well. That uniform was _not _going to fit, though apparently leaving it for her was a nice gesture.

The weird flash of gratitude she felt towards him for that consideration felt awkward and wrong. He was the enemy, right?

He glanced at her without comment on her decision to wrap herself in the quilt, then turned his attention back to the window. She stood uncomfortably beside him. Her instincts seemed to be at war within her: he was evil, she knew from experience with his kind. A vampire, and vampires were dangerous demons. But he was being calm, and even considerate.

Why? She couldn't figure out why he was acting this way.

"This world was much like Earth once," he said, indicating the view that stretched out before them.

She looked out at the devastation. She hadn't seen anything like it outside of documentaries on war and in post apocalyptic science fiction movies. It was starting to get light with the rising dawn, and the fields near the keep were scarred and blackened by past, fierce, battle. There were craters and trenches and the charred bones of small buildings. Past the fields, what had once been trees were lined up in orderly rows of dead stumps. Orchards, she guessed, or they had been once. There wasn't a blade of green grass or an intact building to seen -- the only living things were trolls, and the trolls appeared to be fighting one another in a ravaged field not far from the keep. She didn't know if that was a small battle or simply combat practice.

Beyond that ... the geometrically crumbling lines of a city stood out in sharp contrast against the sunrise. Skyscrapers, and large buildings. What looked suspiciously like a domed stadium with half the dome gone. A bridge, falling into the water of a distant river. It was a savage, apocalyptic scene.

The vampire said quietly, "Before my time here, this was a bountiful, peaceful world. That city was built by a race of mortal creatures -- not human, but you would recognize them as evolutionary kin from a parallel dimension. That is their city you see."

"What ... happened?" She thought she knew the answer, but she had to hear it for her own ears.

"Evil won. There was a Hellmouth. Not here, actually, half a world away. But it opened and the hordes of hell poured out and this world died. There are some of the natives left in that city, and hunting them is sport for the trolls. The natives live like animals among the ruins of their city, hiding like rats and scavenging like dogs for food. Perhaps hundreds eke a desperate and feral existence out where once millions flourished."

He rested a callused hand on the stone windowsill. She glanced down and noted that his fingers and hands were criss-crossed with old scars. He added, "They are so far gone from their civilized ancestry that Torin imported humans from Earth to staff this keep."

"Kidnapped, you mean."

"Mm. Yes. Though most of the humans you see here are descendants of the original lot. Torin breeds them like livestock."

"Why are you telling me this?" She wanted an answer. He was unnerving her, with his preternatural calm and unvampire-like behavior.

He gave her an answer that chilled her to the bone. "Miss Kay, Torin wants to do the same to Earth that happened to this world. He is limited in his opportunities here; others, of equal power, claim vast tracts of territory in this dimension. Lord Federic Torin wishes to release Hell upon Earth. After Earth is ravaged, he will carve out a kingdom of his own from her ruins, and crown himself monarch."

She shuddered. "Why are you telling me this?"

Silence, from the vampire. Then, after a long moment, he said, "Slayers, it is said, have a natural intuition about situations. What do your instincts say about me?"

"What's a Slayer?" she asked.

He simply gazed at her with those crystal blue eyes and waited for an answer.

There was a calm to him -- it was a quiet, cool reserve far stronger than the taint of evil. It was unlike anything she'd ever sensed from a vampire before. She'd discovered the evil of vampires a few years previously; had turned her share to dust. He didn't feel like they did: he felt grounded, and utterly self-possessed. He seemed wise, and very old, and somehow very human, all in the same moment. He was the sort of man who spoke with few words, and could say more with an eloquent silence or raised eyebrow than some people could with a novel's worth of discussion.

He blinked, once. And still he waited, calmly, for her answer.

It was almost as if she'd known him before. She found she could easily picture him cleaned up. After a good bath, with his hair detangled and swept back into a pony tail, he would be a very striking man. Those incredible, nearly purple, eyes were almond shaped, and he had high cheekbones and fair, pale skin. The long cross-shaped scar that marred one cheek did nothing to damage his looks. If anything, it helped give him a certain masculine appeal: without it, he'd look like a teenage boy.

His unusual and -- under the dirt -- quite attractive appearance didn't mean he was good, but her intuition claimed that somehow, someway, she'd known him before. And that he was not on the side of evil. And that filth wasn't his preferred state of being.

She speculated quietly, voice very low, "You're a mole, aren't you? For the good guys -- I assume there is a force of good guys or something you're fighting for?"

Of course there would be good guys. There were bad guys, and it would be human nature to organize against the bad guys.

He nodded gravely, confirming her guess. In a normal tone of voice -- apparently, he wasn't worried about being overheard -- he said, "And you are one of the good guys. They are called Slayers. Slayers were destined to fight the forces of evil. You were born to this fight."

"More ... like me?" She knew exactly what he meant: the super strength, unnaturally swift and thorough healing, incredible reflexes, and senses beyond the human norm.

"Thousands," he assured her. He sounded knowledgeable about this.

She stared at him, dumbfounded. Was he really telling her the truth? Her gut feeling said he was, and she said quietly, "I thought I was alone."

"I understand that Buffy is still in the process of contacting everyone -- Buffy's their leader. They probably would have found you eventually."

"Their leader is named _Buffy_?" She burst out laughing as she picked that bit of data out of an overwhelming flood of information. It was, somehow, a welcome relief to have something to laugh about.

He shrugged, and smiled a bit. "She's tougher than the name implies. She defeated me, and her friends forced my humans soul back into my body. I ... wasn't a secret agent. Not until yesterday. And that was the first time anyone had ever defeated the demon I was. The demon's not exactly grateful to have survived the experience, I might add. They simply kill most vampires they cross. However, they needed my help ... so here I am."

She was unsure of what to make of this.

"I am not altogether happy to have been pulled into the mortal world either. I was resting. However, they did desperately need my help." He sounded as exhausted as _resting _would imply, and closed his eyes as he said this. She found she missed that clear, piercing gaze. He continued quietly, "You could destroy everything, with what you know now. Destroy Earth itself. However ... to make this work, I will need help. An ally, on my side, that I can trust, absolutely. It's a lot to ask, but you're the best chance I have to find that ally."

"Torin expects you to kill me." She was stalling for time because she truly didn't know what to say. Was she really being handed the chance to destroy Earth or save it, with her own actions? Of _course _she'd keep his secret. But it was an overwhelming responsibility.

He shrugged, a gesture that seemed to indicate uncertainty rather than dismissal of her concerns. "I think I have a solution to that. It wouldn't be the first time that I took a human lover, for a time. It -- the demon I was -- likes to string women along -- make them think it loves them, that it's redeemable. One time, it tortured and killed a woman on their wedding night. And mocked her for loving him."

She stared at him. She'd begun to trust him, and now he reminded her of what he was, and what he had done.

Again he closed his eyes. "I ... obviously won't expect you to consummate the relationship. But, regardless of my expectations, you may need to make it look good for Lord Torin."

She glanced at him, at the filthy, matted hair. She could smell him, and he stank of body odor and carrion. It was enough to make her want to gag when she focused on it.

He sighed. As if reading her mind, he said mournfully, "I wouldn't want to touch me either."

Impulsively, she reached a hand out and cupped it against his cheek. He stared at her in shock, blue eyes going wide with astonishment that she'd reached out to him. Then he looked sharply away, and swallowed hard. Had he been human, she though he would have blushed. She lowered her hand, wondering why she'd done that. Weirdly, she didn't feel contaminated by the touch. The way he looked, she ought to want to shower after just standing next to him. However, she had no real desire to repeat the experiment of caressing his cheek, either. Not, at least, until he'd been dunked in some hot water, scrubbed good, and perhaps sanitized with some bleach for good measure!

She decided what he'd told her about being a good guy -- it was all true. Nothing evil could have feigned a response like that. "Vampires don't go in much for hygiene, do they?"

"Depends on the vampire." He swallowed again. "My demon didn't care, and Torin doesn't provide bathing facilities for his minions, in any case."

"You're right. I don't want to touch you, much less ... fake intimacy ... with you."

He flinched.

"Worse, if Torin's any student of humanity, he'd know something was up if a woman was being ... intimate ... with someone who looks and smells like you. You stink like a bum that's been sleeping in a dumpster behind a butcher shop. No human woman would willingly fall in love with a man who smells like you do."

He scowled at her. "Miss Kay, maybe I will eat you, just for that comment."

She grinned, letting him know she was teasing. As he was. She was, somehow, not surprised to see humor light in his incredibly blue eyes. His deep sadness was pushed back for a moment. That sparkling twinkle gave her a sense of deja vu; _where _had she seen this man before?

He raked a hand through his tangled hair. "I think you just gave me a good excuse to take a bath, actually. I'll make a point of mentioning _why _I'm clean to Torin -- that I'm playing mind games with you."

He pulled his hair forward and glowered at the locks. "Maybe I'll just cut all this off ..."

"No!" She protested. Somehow, she could easily picture him with thick red hair swept back into a long ponytail. He would look good, like that.

"I don't know how I'll ever get the snarls out." He frowned at his hair some more. Then he seemed to dismiss the problem. "At any rate, I need to run some errands on Earth tonight, and I was going to make a side trip to see the Slayers and drop off some information they need. Do you want to come, and meet them? They should know about you, and that you're working on my side -- and you can go to Earth when I can't, during the day."

He frowned, then added in that quieter tone of voice, "This will be very dangerous for you. Do you realize that?"

She shrugged. She was scared, yes, but his arguments -- and a certain knowledge that he was telling the _truth _that seemed to be instinctive, that she just couldn't shake -- were compelling. She said, "I thought you were going to _kill _me. Now you're offering me the chance to help save the world."

He nodded, accepting that. "I'll tell Torin that I've convinced you I'm a little lost boy in need of saving and you've fallen in love with me. Or words to that effect. Like I said, he'll probably believe it -- particularly if I send you off on an errand and you come _back _to me." He glanced at the table, and then added, "While I go talk to Torin about the errands I'm going to run, you should eat. And get dressed. You probably don't want to know what the demon's saying in my head about you being naked in my quarters, and me not taking advantage of it."

"You wouldn't, though. Take advantage." She knew that -- knew, in fact, somehow, that this man would be painfully shy and it would take effort to draw him into a relationship with anyone.

"No." He looked up at her, tone very serious. "I never would."

* * *

Kenshin glanced sideways at his unexpected companion. They were climbing the stairs to Lord Torin's command room, which was at the top of a tower. She easily kept up with him -- wasn't even breathing hard -- and yet, he still found himself automatically slowing down. He was used to humans not having his stamina.

_Most people didn't have my speed and stamina even when I _was _human, _he recalled, absently.

Slayers were a different order of creature entirely.

Kay had squished herself into his uniform, though he'd had to find her an undershirt as she couldn't close the top few buttons and the shirt had therefore exposed more cleavage than either of them was comfortable with. He'd also had to help her with the snap on the pants. With clothes on, and easily trotting up the steps beside him, she looked infinitely more confident.

An ... ally.

He'd gone from being terrified that she'd blow his secret to considering her an ally, in the space of moments. Once he'd gotten her calmed down, his own instincts had screamed for him to trust her. He had good people sense and he had long trusted his ability to read others.

Again, he looked over at her. He wondered at the power behind that sense of trust.

"Hitokiri, are you okay?" she asked, apparently aware that he kept glancing her way.

_Hitokiri_. Torin called him that, as a sort of affectionate nickname, and apparently she'd learned his 'name' from his Unseelie master. He wondered if he should ask her to call him by his real name, at least in private.

Himura Kenshin, he thought. _I am Himura Kenshin.  
__  
_//Himura Kenshin, killer of thousands!// The demon gibbered in his head.

//Yes.// He didn't argue the point. As a hitokiri, and then a swordsman on the field of battle later, he'd killed quite a few men, though the souls on his conscience were numbered at significantly less than a thousand. Possibly, more than a hundred -- he'd made a point not to keep count during those awful blood filled years at the end of the revolution. Of course, the demon was responsible for vastly more deaths over the last century. Still, he'd killed his share. And it wasn't worth arguing this with the voice in his head. He was trying very hard to ignore it, truth to tell.

"Hitokiri?" she repeated.

He realized he hadn't responded. "Yes, I am fine."

He would not ask her to call him by his real name -- neither Kenshin, nor even Himura-san, he decided. Torin might overhear and take note of it, and wonder why he had told her his real name. The vampire didn't normally use it -- as many vampires did, he had nearly forgotten the name his human body had been called by. There would be two likely outcomes, if Torin overheard: either Torin would realize something was different about his general, or Torin would think that he had told the girl his real name because _he _was soft on _her. _It wasn't completely unheard of for a vampire to fall in love with a human -- generally, the vampire then turned the human. Vampires could certainly love.

If Torin thought he actually had an emotional attachment to Kay, it could be used against both of them if his -- their, now -- secret was discovered.

He would have to be very, very careful in all respects.

At the top of the stairs, the command room door was open. Kay followed him through the door, treading a little close to his heels. He would need to coach her on proper behavior, here.

Torin, inside, was seated and writing at the map table. He glanced up, saw Kay, and said, "You brought leftovers, my hitokiri?"

Kay had a bandage artfully affixed to her neck, implying he'd bitten her. Under the bandage was, indeed, a bite -- though he hadn't gone so deep as to draw real blood. He was being careful.

"Turns out she's a good lay, too." He shrugged casually. "Decided I'd keep her around for awhile."

"Mm. Well, good to see you getting your rocks off. -- Is she going above, with you?" Torin sounded only absently interested.

Kenshin smirked a very suggestive smirk. "I'm good in bed too."

"This, I know." Torin snorted an amused laugh, just as the demon hit Kenshin with a whirlwind of its memories of Torin demonstrating that he was well aware of his hitokiri's skills. The man liked the artful application of pain, apparenly, and the vampire had liked receiving it. Kenshin had been peripherally aware of this, of course, but the reminder was embarrassing to the point of humiliation. Torin continued, with a grin, "Maybe you'll share."

"I'm Hitokiri's. Not yours!" Kay snapped, with her fists balling.

Kenshin cuffed her -- hard enough to hurt, nearly hard enough to bruise his hand. She was a Slayer; he knew he could hit her considerably harder than that before he did any permanent damage. Kay went to one knee, then sprang back to her feet and spun around with her fists balled. Her reaction was instant fury, not fear, at being struck unexpectedly by him. A second later, she also looked close to tears. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'll try to do better next time! I'm sorry!"

Kenshin, who was internally wincing at the blooming bruise on her cheek, said angrily, "Don't talk back to Lord Torin, or_ he'll _be the one to hit you next time."

Torin roared with laughter. "Better teach your little pet some manners, my Hitokiri. Or I will!"

Kenshin planted a hand in the middle of her back when she spun to face Torin and his mocking words. He wasn't sure what she was going to do, so he shoved her hard towards the dimensional portal that was installed on one wall of the command room. He planted his hand on the control panel and thought clearly of Los Angeles, and a terminus of the portal they'd built in an empty warehouse's basement.

The portal sprang to life, showing a shimmering image of industrial conveyor belts and some sort of metal stamping press. He roughly pushed her through ahead of him, shut the portal down with another slap of his palm on a panel on the far side, and then wheeled on her. "If you _ever _do something like that again, I will kill you myself."

She blinked at him. She looked stunned by his declaration of anger.

"There is far too much at stake to risk Torin deciding he's annoyed enough at you to have a little fun. You have no earthly idea what he is capable of, and I do not think you would be able to withstand his ... affections ... for very long without breaking, that I do not!"

He could picture it now, in his mind's eye: Kay tortured past the point of all bearing, bargaining with Torin for relief with what she knew of the Slayer's plans. To make the torture stop, she would tell. And then all would be lost. And Torin would still kill her.

Torin would _kill _her. That defiant blue gaze would be extinguished.

"You hit me."

"Torin would have expected me to." He heard his voice soften before he was even aware that he'd reacted with sympathy and not continued anger at her. He wondered if he was making a very bad mistake, but he couldn't seem to help himself -- he'd always been a sucker for women in need. And he _could _rationalize this by the fact that having an ally against Torin would be very, very useful. "I'm sorry. Let me see ..."

She blinked at him, but much to his shock, did not pull away when he drew closer. He knew he had not broken the orbit of her eye, because he would have felt the bones crunch, but he'd given her a spectacular shiner.

"Don't apologize," she said, finally, as he scrutinized the injury. "You were right ... I was foolish. It won't happen again. Just ... be aware that I'm not exactly the most ... cooperative ... of women. This simpering fool you want me to play? It's not me."

He nodded curtly. "Kay-dono, a simpering fool would have neither the courage nor strength of spirit to do what we made need you to do. I will _need _allies to make this work, particularly one like you, who can run errands during the day."

They stared at one another, for a moment, and he, for one, didn't know what to say. Finally, he changed the subject. "I come above fairly often. I've got a car here, and Kagome's sent me directions to their home. We'll go there first, and then swing by Office Max."

"Umm ... Office Max?"

He said absently, as they climbed a set of steel stairs to the ground floor, "I need printer ink and paper. I can't exactly send a troll to fetch it. And Torin killed my last vampire lackey for insolence a few months ago. Neither of us trust the human servants above without supervision; they're several generations removed from this world, and don't know the culture or the technology. They would stand out."

"Umm." She frowned at him. "Doesn't your appearance get ... some comment?"

"Oh, yeah. The demon never much cared." He scratched at his hair, reminded again of what he looked like. "I imagine they think I'm homeless or something. I'm probably a bit of a puzzle, to them, actually. I _am _sorry for how offensive I am to the nose, truly."

However, a homeless man wearing a strange uniform would create far less comment than some of the humans from the keep -- who were cowering, simpering, clueless fools. They'd never even seen Earth, and would not have any idea how to act.

"You should tell Torin that a store banned you from entering because of your stink, so that's why you took a bath." Her lips curled up in a grin. "Bitch about it a bit, play it up. Maybe claim to plan on eating the manager later or something."

He sighed. He suspected behind her -- what, teasing? Constructive suggestions? -- there was quite a bit of real revulsion. Nevermind being afraid of him; he was surprised she didn't recoil in abject disgust. "I suppose this means we need to ride with the windows down in my car, that we do."

She snickered.

He realized, in that moment, that he really did like her.

------------


	20. Chapter 20

Anna was sound asleep on couch cushions on Inuyasha's bedroom floor, thumb stuck in her mouth, silvery curls tumbling across the cushion. Inuyasha sat on the floor beside her, watching his niece sleep.

He didn't know how his brother could have given her up like that: he'd just essentially said, "Take care of her," and walked away.

A child. A little hanyou girl who was adorable, and sweet, and funny, and so very smart. He'd discovered that someone -- his father, her late mother, Jaken, or perhaps all three -- had taught her the beginnings of English phonics when he'd read her a story and she'd sounded out words. She knew all her numbers to twenty in English, Japanese and Spanish. She knew her colors, and shapes. Aside from being fluent in English, she spoke Japanese without an accent as well. She had sang songs from the radio with impressive pitch and recall.

She was clearly a happy child, confident, loving. This was not a little girl who was insecure about her place in the world, or who had ever been called a monster. And for a toddler, he thought she was remarkably intelligent.

She liked to ride on his shoulders, and she'd giggled with glee when he'd tickled her. She'd "helped" him with breakfast and lunch, had colored at the kitchen table for about half an hour -- he now had an art gallery on the refrigerator -- and, after one of the Slayers had shown him how to make homemade Play-doh with flour and food coloring, she had proceeded to create a whole bunch of colorful abstract sculptures that were currently drying in the kitchen windowsill.

She'd also cried a couple of times for her father, once for Jaken, and then had said soberly, "My mommy's never ever coming back. She went to heaven. Is my daddy gone away too?"

He'd swept her up then into his arms, and held her very close, and told her that she would always have people who loved her, no matter what happened. And then, after she fell asleep in his arms and he put her down for a nap, he had quietly told Shippou, "If anything happens to both me and my brother, and Kagome, make sure ..."

"Yeah, sure." Shippou had nodded.

Now he sat, and he watched, as she slept. A little girl. His niece. Precious. Children represented the future ... and it struck him that he was fighting for this child's very fate.

He'd been selfish, he thought. He often was -- it was one of his rather basic flaws -- but he'd been unusually selfish when he had wanted to tell Buffy no. No, he wouldn't fight with the Slayers because he hated them. No, he wouldn't fight to save the world because he had a personal grievance with them. His feelings had been more important to him than the fate of the world.

Selfish. Immature. Shallow.

Sometimes, he wondered what anyone ever saw in him.

At that moment, his phone rang. He hastily snatched it up and flipped it open and retreated to the balcony. Outside, it was evening -- half an hour past dark, with just a trace of a golden glow left on the western horizon. "Yeah," he said, low, so as to not wake her.

"It's Hitokiri," Kenshin Himura's calm voice, in Japanese, surprised him. "Kagome didn't answer her cell phone."

"She's in the shower. -- Where are you at?"

"At your gate. I can't seem to pass. Can you let me in?"

Inuyasha, under ordinary circumstances, would have told the demon where he could go, and it would have been a rude and anatomically impossible suggestion. He didn't like strange demons -- or strangers, period -- in his home. However, with a glance over his shoulder at the sleeping child, he said in resignation, "My land's got protections on it. Gimme a sec and I'll update the wards to let you in."

He needed to cooperate, and help, and work with these people. Even if he'd really rather go live in a cave and bite the head off anyone who bothered him that wasn't Kagome.

He walked back inside and touched the mirror over his dresser with one claw. It shimmered, then displayed an image of Kenshin with a young woman. They were both standing at his gate.

"Who's the girl?" He said, very low, hoping Anna wouldn't wake. He didn't recognize her.

"A Slayer. She's with me."

He tapped both images with his claws, murmuring, "Pass. Pass."

He'd set the wards to repel everyone, including humans, because of the need for extra-tight security. Heaven forbid Torin send a few human spies up the road to discover everyone was still alive. That included Slayers, who could normally pass -- his wards weren't quite as sensitive to demonic influence as Torin's binding spell had been in the tower.

"Thank you for trusting me," Kenshin said, over the phone, after Inuyasha had remotely opened the gate and they'd crossed the boundary of the wards.

"Follow the road up. I'll be down in a bit." He knocked on the bathroom door as he passed, "Oye! Kagome! Visitors!"

* * *

Inuyasha -- and a couple Slayers -- met them on the deck. Kenshin wasn't entirely sure he would be invited inside, but Inuyasha did so willingly enough. The hanyou gave Kay a keen look, but said nothing.

Kay stared back at Inuyasha, uncertainty in her expression.

"Kay, this is Inuyasha," Kenshin said, unsure of what was going through her head. She'd obviously figured out the whole "demons = bad = kill" part of slaying, and Inuyasha was unmistakably inhuman.

Inuyasha stuck a hand out for her to shake, though to Kenshin's eye, the hanyou looked as nervous as Kay. He said, "I'm Inuyasha, but you probably already know that."

"Kay. Actually, I'm a newbie, so I didn't know your name." Kay dimpled, suddenly, as if she'd made a snap judgment about him. She shook his hand. "Hitokiri's told me a little bit. He said I'm a Slayer? Some sort of mystical mumbo jumbo yadda yadda I'm supposed to kill demons and save the world on a regular basis it's my destiny. But I haven't met anybody yet." She said most of this without taking a breath, then grinned broadly. "You're a demon, yes?"

"I'm a good guy. And I'm half demon." Inuyasha frowned at her.

"Figured things were more complex than he made them sound," she said, easily. "Good, bad, they're never black and white."

Inuyasha visibly relaxed, at that statement.

"Hi." Kagome, her hair up in a towel, descended the stairs to the living room. "Sorry, I was in the shower."

"Kagome, this is Kay." Inuyasha waved his hands between them, making a sloppy introduction. "Hitokiri brought him with her. I guess you girls will need to fill her in on Slayer stuff."

Kenshin was well aware that everyone was giving him a wide berth. However, when a tiny, white-haired toddler showed up, and wrinkled her nose, and informed Kenshin, "You smell!" very loudly, it gave him a convenient opening. He had not been entirely sure how to politely request to use their bathroom.

"Oye! Anna!" Inuyasha scolded. "That was rude, brat!"

"Brat?" Kagome said, in a dangerous tone of voice. "Talk about rude."

Anna said, "Brat!" and giggled, and held her arms up to Inuyasha so he would pick her up.

He did, and said, "Aren't you supposed to be asleep?"

"Yeah." She buried her face in his shoulder. "I miss Froggy."

Inuyasha patted her back and started swaying back and forth.

Kenshin took that as his chance to clear his throat and say, "She is right, and I do desperately need to clean up. Before we start discussing plans, would you mind terribly if ..."

Looks of relief erupted all around him. Kay looked like she was about to cry. Kagome said, "Yeah, yeah, sure. Not a problem!"

Inuyasha muttered, in a low tone of voice that no mortal ears could ever have heard, but which was perfectly within the range of vampiric hearing, "Thank the fuck."

Very quickly, he was hustled towards the upstairs guest bathroom. Along the way, they gave Kay a better-fitting outfit -- Kagome was about the same size. He was loaned a pair of Kagome's jeans and a t-shirt to wear while this things were washed. Kenshin passed his uniform out the door after stripping, and murmured, "Thank you," to Kagome, who carried his clothes off.

This all took less than five minutes. They were rather enthusiastic about the idea of him taking a bath.

And then he found himself alone in the bathroom.

He turned the shower on, and waited for the water to warm up. The mirror showed nothing but an empty bathroom -- he wondered absently why his clothing wasn't visible in a mirror, but sometimes objects he was holding were. He'd never heard a good explanation for all the aspects of vampirism and suspected he answer might be "magic" which meant logic didn't necessarily need to apply.

When the water was good and hot, and steam was billowing through the room, he stepped under the hard spray. The water felt glorious -- the filth that sluiced off him was brown, disgusting. He would need to scrub their tub after he was done bathing.

But for now, he just stood under the hot spray. His cold flesh warmed as the water coursed over him and for the moment, he knew his body would not have the chill of death to it if anyone touched him. The demon was silent in his head, drowned out by the sheer physical pleasure of getting clean.

Gods, it felt good to stand there and just let the hot water pound over his body.

He started to scrub. As he did, he took stock of his thin frame. The vampire had kept up the practice of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu -- probably, that was why it was able to function at such a high level, as a commander for Lord Torin. Vampires normally lacked the impulse control and discipline needed for real leadership. The largest vampire bands usually numbered less than a dozen.

His body was still hard-muscled, still lean, still covered in scars. More scars than he recalled. Some of those scars troubled him, as he couldn't remember how he'd gotten them. Others were attached to memories of killing -- a thin white line across his chest, for example, had once been a deeply jagged gash that a young woman had given to him with a splintered bamboo shinai.

Not just any young woman.

Kaoru.

He closed his eyes, then, not wanting to see any more. But memories continued to surface: of his wife, desperately fighting for her life, never realizing it wasn't Kenshin who was beating her to death with her own bokken. She'd seized a shinai from a rack in the dojo, and had used it to try to fend him off. It hadn't worked. She had died screaming in anger and rage at his apparent betrayal. Behind the fury had been confusion: she'd trusted him with all her heart, and had never understood why he had turned on her. Why he was beating her to death with the dull side of the sakabatou.

Kenshin slid down to sit in the tub, with the hot spray of the shower beating against the lifeless flesh of the body he now inhabited. Kaoru. His wife, his equal, his partner. She had given him a home -- he, who had wandered without friends nor family for ten years -- had found a home in the arms of a sixteen year old girl. Kaoru had been wise beyond her years, braver than anyone he'd ever known, courageous and kind. He'd loved her with all his heart.

If only I had a weapon with me, that day, in the alley.

He shuddered, and tears came unbidden. He'd killed her. Kaoru. He'd killed Kaoru, with his own hands.

He'd given his sakabatou to Yahiko, a few years before. Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu was really designed for bigger men, and he had no longer been able to practice the most demanding moves. Between the injuries he'd taken as a hitokiri, and the simple wear and tear from pushing his body to near superhuman levels of effort, he had been well past the prime of his fighting abilities. It had been time to pass the blade on to the boy who was like a son to him.

And so, when the vampires had cornered him, he had been entirely unarmed. There had been no need for him to carry a weapon in Tokyo: even without a blade, he was a decent martial artist and could more than easily defend himself against human attackers. However, the vampires had come in a swarm of a dozen. They'd planned to kill him, and turn him, because they wanted Himura Kenshin, master swordsman, on their side..

It had not turned out as they had planned, of course. The very first thing he had done was to dust the whole dozen from that nest. Fools, they were, to think he'd ally with them. There had been too many of them, and they'd had some idiotic scheme involving raising a demon that would lay waste to Tokyo. After that, they figured they'd be able to go on a rampage unimpeded. And they wanted Kenshin with them because they thought his fighting abilities would benefit them. Most were former samurai; a few had fought with, or against, him. They'd known him. They had thought they knew what they would create by turning him.

Kenshin, after he'd been turned, had figured that the whole plot was stupid. Raising a demon would simply earn the attention of the Japanese military and/or various religious orders that practiced martial arts and demon slaying -- and he had no desire to get caught in the crossfire, or to draw attention to himself. He'd dusted all of them before they had even gotten a chance to tell him the details. He didn't need to know the specifics to know how dumb the idea was.

And then he had killed anyone who had ever known or loved him. The demon had revelled in their pain and grief and outrage. It had never shown its game face; it had attacked them with the face of the man they had always loved and trusted as a husband, father, friend.

And then he'd left Japan entirely.

And killed a hell of a lot more people, most of them probably loved by someone the same way he had loved Kaoru.

Kenshin sat under the hot spray of the shower, and cried silent tears. He couldn't cry in front of anyone. Wouldn't, in any case.

He'd been at peace ... his soul had been dead, been gone. Not really unaware of what had happened, but gone, and resting. And now he had to live with memories of what had happened. He could hear Kaoru's shrieks of angry, furious betrayal and pain, as if they had just been shouted and were still ringing fresh and loud in his ears.

He hadn't done it. He told himself firmly, he hadn't done it. He -- being the souled, good, decent man -- was not responsible for his actions as a vampire. How could he be?

But oh! If only he'd fought a little harder against the vampires. If only he'd been carrying a weapon, or if he'd chosen to go to the market with Yahiko or Sanosuke that day rather than alone. So many little choices he could have made that would have changed the outcome.

And he just wanted to rest again. To close his eyes and make the pain go away. His time was long past. He'd failed to protect Kaoru, in the end. He had one last job to do -- save the world -- and then he could sleep again, forever.

He sat there until the water turned cold, and a tentative knock on the door made him look up sharply. "Hitokiri?"

It was Kay. Who, probably, also needed a bath. He'd used up all the hot water. Guiltily, he stood up, and shut the faucet off, and then replied, "I'll be out in a minute, Miss Kay."

His hair was now a mass of heavy wet tangles. He wondered if he could ever unmat it.

Kaoru had always loved his long hair. But detangling that mass was going to be one heck of a chore. Still, he thought he should try. Because perhaps Kaoru was watching him, and she would be disappointed if he cut his hair.

* * *

"Buffy's going to be here in a couple of hours, and she wants in on the information Hitokiri's going to give us. We'll start making some concrete plans as soon as she's here," Kagome told Kay, when she emerged from the shower. "Is there anyone you'd like to call? Let them know you're okay?"

Phone calls. Right. Real world. She was back in the real world. "What is today, anyway?"

Kagome gave her the date. She'd been gone three days. Kay grimaced. "Well, that means I lost my job. No call, no show, y'know."

"I'm sorry." Kagome sounded like she genuinely was.

Kay shrugged. "I was flipping hamburgers at McDonalds. I'll go to the next fast food joint down the road and get a new job. It's not a big deal. -- No, I don't have any family."

"Friends?"

"Not since I became a ..." the word still sounded foreign in her mouth, "... Slayer. They decided I was too weird, what with all the times I disappeared, or got attacked by something, or missed a date because I was fighting a demon."

"So, you've been fighting demons for awhile, yeah?" Kagome smiled faintly, and Kay wondered what that was about. Her first impression of Kagome was that they were a lot alike, but she was dizzied by the amount she didn't know about these people -- and it hadn't really sunk in yet that Kagome and the other girls were just like her.

"Yeah." Kay nodded. "About three years or so. There were these guys with no eyes that came after me -- I've been studying martial arts since I was a kid, but that was the first time I'd ever actually needed what I'd been learning."

"Bringers." Kagome identified Kay's description. "Did you win?" she asked, with curiosity.

"First time I ever fought demons. But, yeah. A couple of times. Did you fight them?"

"No, I was in the past. Literally. Missed the whole thing. Inuyasha and I had our own Big Bad to kill."

"Time travel?" Kay guessed, boggling at that idea.

"Something like that ... anyway, they weren't demons, they were humans who'd been posessed by the First. But close enough. I can tell you the whole story later, but it's a bit of a long story."

Kay fell silent. Humans? She'd never known that. She'd assumed they were demonkind. She wasn't sure what she thought about that. If they'd been possessed, had she killed innocents? She set that realization aside to think about later, and continued, "After that, I seemed more sensitive to bad guys ... a few weeks later I got a power up of some sort."

"Power up!" Inuyasha snorted a laugh from behind Kagome. She had wondered if the half-demon played video games. By his laugh, she suspected the answer was 'yes.' She found herself instinctively liking him; he was rough around the edges, but there was quite a bit of humor and a very good heart lurking behind his harsh, brash front.

After a smile of acknowledgement at Inuyasha, she continued, "... I've been hunting them down and fighting them ever since. Mostly vampires, the occasional other freaky scaly slimey thing."

"You have got to meet Buffy, she'll give you the Slayer scoop." Kagome said, "There's over a thousand girls like us around the world. -- Anyway. I think Mr. Himura is out on the deck. Do you want to check on him?"

Kay found she actually did. She was weirdly worried about him -- about his emotional state. It was a strange thing, how instinctively she had reacted to him. She had gone from being frankly scared of him to scared for him in under a day. There was just something about the quiet, reserved little man that made her all sorts of fiercely protective. "Yeah, I'll go see what he's up to."

When she walked to the door, however, she saw he looked busy. He had a comb and was trying to pick years' worth of matted snarls out of his gorgeously red hair. It appeared to be slow going, and she wondered why he didn't just cut it short. Had his hair been anything but thick, silky, and very, very straight, those matts would have formed into dreadlocks long ago.

Impulsively, she slipped back inside and spoke to the others. She asked in a low voice, "Do you guys have any spray on detangler -- maybe for the kid?"

Inuyasha frowned, obviously not entirely sure what she was talking about. However, Kagome nodded sudden understanding. "Yeah, Anna's father packed some. I'll get it."

"Thanks." She thought Hitokiri needed a bit of help -- and somehow, she felt very bad for him, sitting out there alone and trying to fix many years worth of tangles.

* * *

Kenshin heard light footsteps behind him, then Kay said, "Need a hand?"

"Huh?" He said, genuinely perplexed by the question. He paused while picking at a tangle, and looked up at her.

"Your hair. You look like you've got quite a job there." She had a plastic spray bottle in one hand and a comb in the other, so her intentions were obvious.

He flushed with embarassment and his voice held faint overtones of stubborn pride when he said, "I don't need help with this."

"Nonsense." She started to sit down behind him.

He spun to face her, sitting cross-legged on the ground. Kenshin gestured with annoyance at his hair with the comb. "I don't need help. I think I'm just going to cut it all off. This is hopeless."

Except he truly didn't want to cut his hair. He wanted his pony tail back -- long, thick, shiny. Kaoru had loved to stroke that pony tail; she would come up behind him, when they were alone, and run her fingers through his hair. Then she would hug him from behind, breath whispering against his neck. That quiet gesture had almost always led to other things; the kind of things that a man and a wife shared.

Kay practically growled at him, "Don't be stupid. I want to help."

"I don't need any help!" He clearly felt humiliated by the entire idea.

"Idiot," she snapped. "Don't let your pride get in the way of ... of ... your hair!"

He stared at her. "My pride?"

"Yeah. Your pride. Your hair's gorgeous, you nimwit. Let me help so you don't have to cut it off. Or I'll be really mad at you.""

"Heaven forbid you be mad at me," he felt a small smile touch his lips. He'd always liked feisty girls, and stubborn ones. And, really, she was right -- he needed help. He knew it, but it rankled to admit it.

The last person -- the only person since he'd been a child -- to comb his hair for him had been his wife. Grief twisted his heart into a knot, as he remembered her. However, Kay seemed to take his silence as acquiescence because she shuffled around behind him on her knees. When he tried to turn again to face her, she planted hands on either side of his head and twisted his head back so that he was forced to stare straight ahead. He felt a cold spray of something against the nape of his neck, and then the sharp tang of perfume.

"What's that?"

"Detangler," she said, sounding all business. "Sit still. You can wash it out later if you want. It's a bit girly smelling. But it'll help get the knots out."

Her fingers were cool and nimble against the nape of his neck as she started to work. She paused once, when her knuckles brushed his skin, and that was the only hesitation she showed. He wondered if that brief break was due to the fact that his skin was as cold and still as a corpse's. If she's noticed that, however, she made no comment on it - instead, she muttered in annoyance under her breath at him in a general way as she picked at the tangles. To his bemused surprise, despite her grumbling, she was suprisingly gentle and efficient, and she started to make swift headway on the mess.

His embarassment at her ministrations slowly eased. It felt very good to know someone cared ... it had been a very long time since anyone had cared about him.

No. That wasn't right. He shook his head in confusion. It had been a very long time since anyone had cared about the vampire. Except he was not the vampire. He was Kenshin Himura, forced to share a body with a demon. People had cared about Kenshin, when he had lived. Even as a hitokiri, his superiors had cared about him -- truly cared. He'd never been just a killer to them; they'd seen him as a young boy they were forced into using by circumstances for what they saw as the greater good.

Himura had been loved by many. He'd realized that, after he'd gone to his rest.

The vampire? Not so much. He doubted even Federic Torin cared for his Hitoriki as a person, though Torin had made it abundantly clear that he deeply valued Hitokiri as one of his most important officers. And trusted him, too.

He flinched at that realization. Kenshin didn't like to break anyone's trust. Torin trusted him. There was a weird dichotomy there -- on one hand, he wanted to see the man dead and buried and he would not regret that kill. On the other hand, he'd be breaking oaths given to the man.

"Hold still, you." She flicked him in the back of the head with a finger, scolding him for moving.

Wait, he thought, I am not Hitokiri. I am Kenshin Himura. I made no oath to Torin ... the vampire is the one who has vowed allegiance to him. And the vampire did it knowing he could easily break those promises if it was expedient to do so.

It felt so strange to think in the first person, as if he had been that monster. Or to think he might be responsible for a promise given by the demon that animated his long-dead body.

Kay worked on his hair for almost an hour. He sat quietly, lost in thoughts of his own, and let her work.

Getting the snarls out took less time than he'd expected, really. When she was done, she borrowed a pair of scissors and neatened the ends for him, taking a few inches off. Then she used a clip borrowed from Inuyasha -- who had a pony tail that made Kenshin's pale and wimpy in comparison -- to pull his hair back.

"There you go," she clapped him on the shoulder. "All done."

"Thank you," he said, stiffly.

He hesitated, then added, "Miss Kay, I wish I could leave you here. But Torin's collar will set off an alarm if it's removed while you're still alive. I could not lie and say I ate you if I had not done so, because of the collar. And he could kill you remotely if I told him you ran."

She stroked his pony tail. The gesture startled him with its tenderness. "You're afraid I'll get hurt, aren't you?"

"Aa." His affirmative was soft, barely loud enough for her to hear. It felt strange to him to worry about the fate of another ... and then he remembered he'd always been more worried about others than himself. It was in the memories of the demon that he'd not cared about anything but himself.

"I'm ... I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified. But ..." She ran her hand through his hair again. The guesture sent pleasant shivers down his spine. He could have sat there forever, letting her touch him. The demon wasn't complaining either, surprising him. "But the alternative would be to sit there and wait for the world to end. If the world's going to end, I want to go down fighting. If I die saving the world ... it would be worth it, too."

He closed his eyes, feeling her fingers in his hair, smoothing out the frizzies with easy, comfortable strokes.

"Kenshin," she said, voice nearly inaudible, "You will need my help. You ignite in sunshine and you can't be in two places at once."

"I know ... and if I hadn't said something to you, you'd probably have died of an anxiety attack. Or managed to kill me or yourself. I commend you for your courage, really. I'm sure Torin did his best to terrorize you before delivering you to me."

"No!" The strength of her denial of that idea shocked him. It seemed to come from the very bottom of her soul. "Kenshin, I'd never hurt you now. Now that I know ... know the truth. I'd never hurt you."

He nodded, "I know that." Then he added, "Did the others tell you my real name?"

"Huh?"

"Kenshin," he prompted.

The hand in his hair stilled. "Kagome called you Himura ... I don't know where ..." She shook her head, clearly confused. "I must have heard it from one of them."

"Don't call me that around Torin." He felt bad, somehow, as if he was rejecting her. "Call me Hitokiri."

"What's that mean?"

"Manslayer."

He felt her wince behind him. "You're not, though. Not anymore."

"Mm." She didn't know about his past as a human. Well, she'd learn soon enough from the others. He didn't need to tell her himself. He wasn't ashamed, exactly, of his past, but he wasn't proud of it either.

She moved to sit next to him, legs dangling off the edge of the deck. "Kenshin, why does Torin want to destroy Earth?"

"I told you: he wants to conquer the ruins that are left."

"No, I mean, why would anyone want so badly to rule that they'd be willing to kill billions?"

He was silent for a moment. It was a good question. "He's a demon, and demons have no souls. No soul ... no conscience. Killing six billion humans so he can have a new castle? Our fears, our terror, would only amuse him. He doesn't empathize with mortals or, really, with anyone. I've worked for him for a century and he'd kill me in a heartbeat if it served his ends, and never miss me. The only reason he hasn't done so is that I'm very useful to him. I win battles for him, again and again. If he killed me, he would need to replace me, and that would be an aggravation for him. He sees me in the same light one would view a fine sword."

"What about Kavan?" She glanced inside. "Does he have a soul?"

Kenshin shrugged. "Probably not. But it is in his best interest to see Earth saved. He's of this world. This is his home, and it would be destroyed by Torin. So he, and others like him, help the Slayers."

"It can't be that simple."

Now it was his turn to reach out and pet her hair. He did so absently, without even realizing he was doing it. "Nothing is ever that simple. Demons can love, did you know that? They can really, and truly, love. With all the selfless behavior that implies. Love ... when you love someone, you put their welfare ahead of your own, you sacrifice for them, you are happy when they are happy."

"How can a soulless creature love, if it has no conscience?" she asked, clearly confused.

"What is love, to begin with?" He noticed what he was doing with his hand when his fingers caught on a small tangle in her hair, and he dropped his fisted fingers into his lap. He didn't want to presume upon her, to assume liberties he really shouldn't take. They weren't lovers -- weren't even friends, really. How could she care about him, or trust him, when she'd known him such a very short time? Besides, he was an animated corpse. She couldn't possibly enjoy being touched by a dead man.

"Why do mortals, with souls, love? And there are men and women who will never know that joy, as well. Do they lack a soul?"

Kay said quietly, "Inuyasha's brother sent his daughter here to be safe. He loves her, I'd say -- Kagome said Inuyasha hates his brother, but his brother sent here here anyway because she would be safe. They're half brothers and Sesshoumaru is wholly a demon. You're right, I guess. They can love."

"Japanese demons believe they have souls, you know." Kenshin tucked his knee to his chest. "Maybe they do. Maybe all demons do. Maybe the evil, the terrible things demons do, are done in spite of a soul -- or because they have a soul which isn't human, and to it, human lives matter no more than the lives of mice matter to men."

"If something has no soul, and you kill it, it's not murder." Kay found a small twig on the deck and flicked it off into the night. "It'd be convenient for humans to justify killing demons by claiming they have no soul."

"Mmm. And easy for some demons to justify the terrible things they do by claiming they are soulless monsters as well. If you have no soul, you face no reckoning after you die. You live for the moment -- for the power, the excitement, the joy of the now. You don't live your life with repercussions in an afterlife in mind." Kenshin sat crosslegged on the deck. "I don't know the answers to the questions I raise here, Kay. Only that I've seen things which raise questions in my own mind, about the nature of what we are."

"Do you think we could ... reason ... with the demons?"

"With the hellspawn that Torin wants to release? No." He snorted. "They've been held in a hell dimension -- one far more hellish than the world where his keep is -- for generations. Millenia. They're angry. They want out. And they will wage destruction and death on the entire world if Torin succeeds in releasing them. There will be no reasoning nor bargaining with them. They've never known anything but savagery."

He shook his head. These discussions made his head and his heart hurt. "Demons ... we can discuss philosophy all we want, but at the end of the day, it's us or them, isn't it?"

Unexpectedly, the voice in his head said, //And you're one of us.//

One of us. A demon.

He growled back, //I chose to lay claim my humanity.//

//Too bad humanity will never lay claim to you.//

Kay's hand on his arm drew him back to the present. Again she was touching him, and this time, there was no pause when she did so. He looked up at her and met her level gaze. Her eyes were a fierce blue. He'd never noticed how blue they were before. "Us or them. Good guys versus bad guys, eh? I suppose I can live with that. The bad guys are the ones who want to lay waste to Earth. Easy enough to know which side to chose."

//And I'm a good guy,// he told the demon, anger in his thoughts. //And I will do my part to see that the bad guys are stopped. Even if the good guys never thank me. I'm not doing this for thanks.//

The demon was silent. Perhaps it had no response for that.


End file.
